


Godchild

by griseldajane



Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: Angst, Devotion, Domestic, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protective!Loki, Sibling Bonding, Sibling Love, Transformation, kid!Thor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-16
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-14 10:11:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 39,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/514127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griseldajane/pseuds/griseldajane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Loki finds a de-aged Thor wandering alone on the battlefield, Loki takes the five year old child in and resolves to figure out how Thor was transformed and why...</p><p>-----</p><p>The whimpering grows into sobbing and Loki waves the steam away with a sweep of his arm to reveal a blond haired boy wandering across the cracked pavement. </p><p>The child stumbles over Mjolnir and falls to the ground.  Loki starts and not because the child is crying anew, but because Mjolnir shifted a small measure as the boy’s weight leaned against it.  The hammer moves for no one save for the God of Thunder himself.</p><p><i>“Thor?”</i> Loki questions and before he becomes fully aware of what he’s doing, Loki sweeps in, snatching the child into his arms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One: Spellcast in Tandem

**GODCHILD**

\-- PART ONE --

A wake of sorcery bleeds out along the battlefield, like water flowing over the edge of a glass. Its potency is a siren-song, luring Loki to it as a moth moves toward flame. On this occasion, it is not Loki’s misdeeds that have called the Avengers to action, though it is the achievement of a great sorcerer-- Loki has not felt a power that rivals his own in a long time. 

The God of Mischief treads carefully as he follows the slipstream of magic down a narrow passageway between two brick buildings. He senses something close by, but faint and insignificant, a lesser creature, whatever it may be is not strong enough to be the fount of this magic signature. The Avengers are overhead on the rooftops, fighting some great beast that is surely just a distraction for the superhero team. They are not yet aware of his presence and Loki would like to keep it that way.

A soft whimpering attracts his attention back to the scene before him. Steam billows up from a storm drain, obscuring the end of the alley. As Loki peers through the vapors, Mjolnir comes into view, head on the ground, handle upturned towards him, a dark unyielding shape against the undulating white. 

Surprise and a touch of something colder unfurl within him. Glancing skyward, he catches a glimpse of Iron Man between the gap of the buildings, whirling overhead in a streak of red. Loki knows Thor would not sideline his beloved weapon in the midst of battle, not unless he couldn’t summon the hammer, and so the question comes to his mind unbidden, _What trouble has Thor aggravated that he is bereft of Mjolnir?_

The whimpering grows into sobbing and Loki waves the steam away with a sweep of his arm to reveal a blond haired boy wandering across the cracked pavement. The child has a dazed look about him, his blue eyes wander unfocused, his face red and wet with tears. He’s wearing nothing but an oversized shirt which falls around him like a robe. In the January weather, he shivers visibly and Loki wonders where on earth this child could have come from, particularly dressed like this.

The child stumbles over Mjolnir and falls to the ground. Loki starts and not because the child is crying anew, but because Mjolnir shifted a small measure as the boy’s weight leaned against it. The hammer moves for no one save for the God of Thunder himself.

_“Thor?”_ Loki questions and before he becomes fully aware of what he’s doing, Loki sweeps in, snatching the child into his arms. The boy is small, but his embrace is strong. An aura of magic stains him, a nerve ending raw shock of power dripping down his person like a thick coat of paint. Loki feels its awesome force bristling against his skin, and realizes it is ensnared deeply into the child with a barb-like hold. 

Loki pulls back some and runs his fingers through the blond hair then cups his small face between his hands. Despite being red rimmed and tear filled, there’s no mistaking those blue eyes. _This child_ is _Thor._

“Thor, do you know me?” Loki asks. “Do you know who I am?”

Big eyes stare up at him and he shakes his head, a look of panic on his face. 

“I am who you call brother,” Loki says.

“Loki?” he asks, his voice high and small with newfound juvenescence. 

“Yes, that’s right,” Loki replies, and for some reason grateful that little Thor remembers him.

Anxiety still creases his tiny brow. There are questions there that are too profound for Thor to understand, let alone voice. He’s clearly in shock having been thrust into the mind and body of a child. Loki finds himself contemplating the unthinkable. 

“Do not worry, little one,” Loki says. “I will take you home.” 

Having Thor in his possession is a valuable asset, he reasons, a bartering chip against the Avengers. Perhaps he can even influence child Thor to follow his commands. That would _really_ nettle his teammates. Furthermore, Loki cannot let sorcery like this slip through his fingers. Taking Thor with him would allow ample time to study the magic that has transformed him.

“Home to mother?” Thor asks him in a small voice, his eyes round and innocent. A stab of feeling twists loose inside of Loki. Standing vulnerable in his grasp, Thor’s little hands clutch his arms in absolute trust. It’s startling to think that his oafish brute of an older brother was ever this tiny and defenseless.

When he looks into the boy’s innocent face, a compulsion to shelter him from all the ills of the world grips him wholly. Where in all the nine realms this impulse comes from, he knows not. But before he can answer Thor, Iron Man is plummeting down from above. He lands with a loud clang and Thor clutches Loki’s arm, frightened.

In one quick motion, Loki snatches Thor up into his arms, holding the child protectively against his body as he stands to face the Avenger.

“Hiding behind a kindergartener? That’s low, even for you,” Stark says. “Put the kid down, Loki.” The Man of Iron will not engage him while Thor is in his grasp.

“No,” Loki says simply.

“He’s just a little kid!” Stark shouts. “He’s innocent. He has nothing to do with any of this.” Loki realizes that Stark does not yet know that the child in his arms is Thor and he holds his brother tighter.

“Your assumptions paint you the fool,” Loki sneers.

“Let him go,” Stark says. “Kidnapping is kind of a big deal on Earth.”

Loki laughs at him then and says, “You cannot steal what already belongs to you. This child is more mine than he will ever be yours.”

And he vanishes with the child in tow before Stark has time to process his words.

*****

Seated in a chair atop a stack of large books, Thor sits at Loki’s kitchen table eating a bowl of Cheerios, his legs swinging happily over the edge of his makeshift booster seat. He holds the spoon awkwardly in his little fist, opening his mouth wide to accommodate a gluttonous scoop of cereal. Milk dribbles down his chin back into the bowl as he shoves the spoonful into his mouth.

Loki catches a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth, but he forces it down before it can crest and thinks, _Curse you, Thor, and your damnable endearing nature..._

A picture of nonchalance, Loki leans with his chin propped in his hand as if bored, but his gaze is unblinking and intent as he scrutinizes the child. For the hundredth time, his eyes sweep over his sun-gold hair, his face rounded with youth, his little arms propped up on the table, and marvels that Thor was _ever_ this small. He certainly has no memory of it. Even in their early years, Thor had been a looming presence, one whose shadow had always cast over Loki. 

It’s a little disorienting to see _anyone_ sitting at his polished dark wood table, let alone Thor. His half-witted brother had never even suspected that Loki rented a small safe haven flat in New York, and Loki, for all his cleverness, had never thought Thor would be coming over to his little hideout. But this bothers him only slightly as compared to the larger problem of his older brother being de-aged by hundreds of years. Loki wagers he’s around five years old now, give or take a year.

_By the Nine,_ five _years old..._

Simply from spending the better part of the evening with the boy, Loki understands, with absolute certainty now, that this little wisp of a thing really, truly _is_ Thor, the mighty God of Thunder. Memories Loki didn’t know he still possesses resurrect themselves in his mind’s eye as he watches his brother from centuries past amble around his apartment. 

What happened exactly, or why the fates put Loki in that alley before Tony Stark remains a mystery, but somewhere deep down, Loki is secretly glad. Of course he is. The chance to manipulate Thor _and_ to study a kind of terran sorcery previously unknown to him all in one fell swoop is too great an opportunity to ignore.

The God of Mischief is teeming with questions, but little Thor can’t seem to answer any of them and gets upset when Loki pushes for information. What he has gleaned from him is that Thor has few memories and those are mostly vague impressions or feelings about things. He doesn’t remember much of Loki or Asgard and he certainly doesn’t remember the Avengers or how he came to be transformed.

The boy is unquestionably still in shock and Loki wonders to what extent Thor’s system has been traumatized by his magical alteration. With the pretense of brushing Thor’s hair from his face, Loki reaches out and brushes the blond strands back before dropping his fingers to a gentle perch along the back of his neck. 

More than merely Thor’s divine nature purrs beneath his skin. There’s an inky coldness circulating through him, a lattice of dark sorcery that binds his brother to this childlike shape. An ancient curse, Loki realizes as his lips thin to a frown.

The hex is a mass of knots and winding threads that Loki quickly loses track of. A shock of cold runs up his fingers, like tiny mouths filled with sharp teeth biting along the veins in his arm. An uneasiness settles in his bones, for Loki has never before felt such _evil_ within Thor. 

Embers of wrath stir within him, rising up from some depth buried deep inside him. Someone _dares_ to trifle with his golden brother, the crown prince of Asgard, the God of Thunder-- He’s at once shocked by this feeling and accepting of it. His is a possessive hatred. Thor is, and always will be, _his_ and _his alone_ to destroy.

Thor rolls his shoulders absently and Loki removes his hand. He watches as Thor pours himself a second helping of cereal, spilling more onto the table than into the bowl, and Loki can’t suppress the smirk that spreads across his face. Despite all that’s been done to him, the boy seems happy enough. 

Loki finds himself in an interesting position. From the moment Thor was swept into his arms, the boy accepted Loki as his brother without question, trusted him readily and foolishly, which must mean that somewhere locked in this child Thor’s memories still exist.

He considers Thor for a moment. Suppose this magic cannot be unwound, suppose it has longevity and Thor stays in child-form, what will he do with him then? Will Loki risk taking Thor to Asgard for a second upbringing in the house of Odin? Will he abandon him on some Midgardian doorstep for mortals to raise? 

Loki dismisses both of these notions. Enemy or not, Thor deserves better.

The idea that blooms in his mind is sudden and magnificent. The opportunity for an even greater revenge than he ever could have concocted on his own has presented itself to him. If _he_ were to raise Thor as his own-- _oh, how that would enrage Odin--_ he could turn his firstborn child against him much the same way Odin had planned to use Loki against his heritage, he could correct all the arrogance and sense of righteousness in one fell swoop, mold Thor to his will in a way that a thousand years of battle never would. And the Avengers would lose their favorite plaything. It would be a slow burn, but how bright and everlasting the blaze would be.

Except, this is all fantasy, assuming that the magic binds Thor indefinitely, or that Loki cannot find a way to reverse it, or that there would come a time when he would not _want_ the curse reversed. Of course he wants it reversed. Loki wants the glorious battle to the death with the God of Thunder that is his birthright.

But once he allows himself to envision a life with Thor as his charge, he cannot cast the thought out.

Thor yawns and pushes the bowl away. He looks as if he’s ready to put his head down on the table and sleep right there. He’s made quite a mess, spilled milk and Cheerios scattered across the polished surface, but Loki waves it away with little effort.

“It’s been a long day, hasn’t it, brother?” Loki asks. Thor nods through another yawn and lets Loki lift him up. Once again, he puts his little arms around Loki’s neck, his grip strong and trusting. It’s simply a guess that Thor is around five years old now, but Loki thinks that perhaps he’s younger than that, for he feels unbelievably small in Loki’s arms. Loki never realized what an impact Thor’s immense physical presence had on him until he was made significantly less physically intimidating.

“Come, let’s get you to bed,” Loki says and carries him into his bedroom.

Within minutes of Thor curling up in Loki’s bed, he’s out like a light. It’s a California King with eight hundred thread count Egyptian cotton sheets that Thor is currently drooling on, but Loki discovers he doesn’t care. The bed is so spacious and Thor is so small that Loki can’t even tell he’s there when he slides in the other end later that night.

*****

A small, pained noise startles Loki awake. Forgetting for an instant that he’s not alone, Loki shoots up in bed in a state of high alert until he sees Thor flailing in the sheets beside him, caught in the throes of a nightmare.

The space between them isn’t far, a distance Loki spans simply by leaning across the mattress. “Thor, wake up,” he says, placing a hand on his shoulder. Sweat plasters his blond hair to his forehead and Thor turns miserably away, still wrapped up in bad dreams.

Thor is his elder sibling, his sworn rival, the one he despises above all. Much hurt exists between them, years of haughty words, misunderstandings and outright violence. Yet, all this is forgotten while the child thrashes. Thor’s obvious torment yanks at Loki’s heartstrings and for the second time this day, he’s struck with the overwhelming urge to protect him.

“Thor,” Loki says again, drawing him up. The boy’s eyes snap open and he gasps in terror, launching himself at Loki. He feels Thor shaking against him and is once more surprised by the strength contained in such tiny limbs. 

Letting some unknown instinct guide him, Loki hesitantly brings his arms up around his brother, holding him close. 

“You’re alright,” Loki soothes. For once in their relationship, Loki realizes all of a sudden that _he’s_ the pillar of strength, the one who must be steadfast and true and this thought wrenches something inside him that he doesn’t want to examine too closely.

“Do you want to tell me?” Loki asks, but Thor shakes his head. He decides not to push right now. Thor’s undergone quite a bit of stress today, too much for a child his age.

Loki lays back with Thor cradled to his chest, who fits easily within the span of his arms. His brother shifts, turning towards his body and nestles against him, a warm comforting weight at his side.

Loki listens as Thor’s breathing levels out to the even cadence of sleep and soon sleep finds him, too.

*****

When Loki rouses, sunlight from the undrawn blinds banding lines across his face, he finds Thor already awake, back on the opposite side of the bed, curled around a pillow. His blue eyes track him carefully, like a hunter stalking wild game. Thor isn’t exactly frightened, but he’s cautious-- he doesn’t bolt when Loki comes over to his side of the bed, but he does shrink back a little.

“Do you remember where you are?” Loki asks him and Thor nods obediently. “I suppose we should get you fed and into some clothes that fit you,” Loki says. 

Thor doesn’t say anything, but he stares at Loki with his brow drawn in and his eyes wide open with unasked questions. He can see the gears turning as little Thor thinks and it is so like _his_ Thor that Loki rolls his eyes and gives an impatient sigh.

“What is it?” Loki demands when it becomes apparent that Thor will remain silent and gawking unless pressed. Crossing his arms over his chest, Loki says, “Staring is impolite, Thor. If you have something to say, say it now or forget it.”

“You are Loki,” he says with uncertainty. “But... why are you big and I am not?” 

Loki is sure that Thor had wondered this last night, but the boy had been too traumatized to speak it. “You’ve been spellcast upon,” Loki explains, keeping his answer simple. “You were just as big as I am until a sorcerer made you small again.”

“Why?” Thor asks. “Was I bad?”

“I don’t know why, but we’re going to find out,” Loki says. Giving Thor a considering glance, Loki sits next to him on the mattress and asks, “Why would you think it was because you were bad?”

Thor shrugs, but doesn’t look away from him. He’s already forgotten his question and has moved back to studying Loki. When Thor crawls up to him, staring intently, he is looking for something familiar to latch onto. 

Thor touches his knee, reaches up to play at a strand of his dark hair, and then settles upon Loki’s eyes. He stares for a long time, so long that Loki would allow no one other than Thor this intimacy. His openness and his innate need to touch is very much like the older brother he knows and it makes Loki’s reserved demeanor soften a bit.

“You _are_ Loki,” Thor says, with a relieved smile. “You got really big!” 

Loki lets out an amused snort and says, “Yes, well. Brother, you grow up to be quite a mountain yourself.”

“As tall as you?” he asks.

“Taller, actually,” Loki says.

Thor grins, pleased by this.

“Come now, Thor,” Loki says, rising to his feet. “We have a lot of things to do today.”

“Are we going home? To Asgard?” Thor asks. “I want to see mother.”

Thor looks up at him innocently with no idea how such a simple request rankles him. He can’t be mad at him, Loki reminds himself. It’s not as if it’s some great insensitivity on Thor’s part or that his obtuse brother merely _forgot_ that Loki is an outcast and hasn’t seen the only mother he’s ever known in years.

“No,” Loki says. “There are other things that require our attention.”

“But I _want_ to go home,” Thor says, petulance creeping into his voice. “Father will know how to fix me.”

Loki holds in a scowl at the mention of Odin. There is much Thor does not know-- too much to be explained to him at the moment. “I’m afraid that’s not possible right now,” Loki says. “You will stay with me. I may be able to reverse the spell and change you back to your proper age.”

“You?” Thor questions, and his face brightens with true delight. “You know magic?”

This Thor is unspoiled by prejudice. He is too young to have been blemished by rumor or to understand the stigma against sorcerers in Asgardian society. To him, magic is wonderful, just as dragons are part of bedtime stories and Midgard nothing but a limb on the worlds tree.

With a flourish Loki produces a blue flame of light in his palm, simple hand magic, and lets the fire dance over his fingers before having it leap up and tickle Thor’s face. Thor giggles and his eyes shine with wonder. It has been a long time since Thor looked at him like that and an old ache awakens in him.

“I am a great sorcerer,” Loki explains. “And you are a great warrior.”

“Together, we must be unstoppable,” Thor says, grinning wide.

A tight smile pulls at his lips and all Loki can say is, “yes.” The _we would be if..._ remains silent in his throat.

If Thor only knew to what purposes his warrior ways and Loki’s sorcery had been applied, what lengths they had gone through to punish each other. This child cannot fathom such a thing. It would be anathema to Thor that his beloved younger brother and he had grown up to become sworn enemies.

“I’m hungry,” Thor says at once, clutching the fabric of Loki’s pant leg as he hops down from the bed. His already short attention span has become even shorter with his newfound youth.

“Yes, let’s see what I have,” Loki replies quietly and follows Thor as he dashes through the bedroom doorway towards the kitchen.

*****

It’s been four days since Loki discovered his de-aged brother in an alleyway which is enough time for Loki to realize what a handful a five year old little boy is. Loki had thought there would be plenty of time to explore the sorcery that has ensnared Thor, but so far all he’s had time and energy for is a nightly check to see if the magic has become unstable or has changed in anyway.

Thor is only five, or thereabouts, and as a five year old Thor’s needs are considerable. Being the younger sibling and a prince besides, Loki never had to worry about taking care of Thor before, but now little Thor needs his meals prepared for him and sometimes requires assistance dressing and undressing and bathing and brushing his teeth and being told when to go to bed, not to mention the inexhaustible stream of questions that Thor has on just about everything.

While Thor seems to understand and can communicate in all-speak, little Thor only knows how to write his own name and cannot read any Midgardian books (not that Loki has any even remotely suitable for children lying around his apartment). There is neither a yard to run around in nor any children his own age to play with, and so Thor very quickly becomes bored, turning to Loki for his only source of amusement. 

The little thunder god is constantly underfoot and when he’s not, Thor is getting into all his things, building forts from his furniture, climbing to the top and jumping off, smashing lamps and end tables upon landing, drawing over Loki’s carefully researched notes, spilling any liquid that he comes into contact with on his _previously_ immaculate white carpeting and generally being unable to go unmonitored for longer than an hour without getting into something he most definitely should _not_ be touching in Loki’s apartment. 

There is also the added unpleasantness of Thor’s nightmares. The child has been plagued with bad dreams each night since his transformation. He wakes terrified and crying or else flails in misery until Loki can rouse him. The stress and loss of sleep do nothing to help either Thor or Loki adjust to the new situation they’ve landed in.

Thor needs regular attention and supervision and Loki finds himself unaccustomed to constant companionship. His patience, which he had always prided himself on possessing an inordinate amount of, runs thin.

Loki finally snaps at him from days of constant irritation, and seeing Thor’s honest face crumple with hurt brings him no enjoyment. Provoking his older brother used to be one of his favorite pursuits, but Loki realizes that he does not have the want to upset Thor the child. 

Despite his quirks, Thor is a gorgeous child, both physically and in spirit, and Loki can understand why his brother was so spoiled by those around him, why everyone around him yearned to be in his favor. Thor takes delight and wonder in nearly everything, his enjoyment of life is profound and infectious, spreading like a delightful plague to those he touches, and Loki is not immune.

Loki finds himself gladly playing the fool, enjoying it even, if only to be rewarded with one of his brilliant smiles. It catches him completely by surprise that he should act this way, that this little child could influence him so. It is as if Loki has been spellcast upon in tandem with Thor.

“What have you done to me?” Loki whispers as he chases after Thor, trying to corral him for bathtime.

*****

Loki sits on the floor in front of the television, back pressed against the frame of the couch, legs outstretched before him as he looks over the only tome he has on hand about Midgardian magic. A few paces to his right, Thor plays with a newly purchased toy truck, wheeling it along the edge of the coffee table.

There’s a bulletin on the six o’clock news that catches his attention. _Super Villain Loki Abducts Child_ says the news crawl at the bottom of the muted television screen. Loki’s gaze flits to Thor who is absorbed in building a structure out of blocks so that he can knock it over with his toy truck.

Loki doesn’t want him to see this, so he keeps the volume muted and turns the captions on. Video footage of himself holding Thor to his chest while trading remarks with Iron Man loops on the screen. The footage is obviously from a camera on the Iron Man suit itself. Unfortunately, Loki looks every inch the monstrous kidnapper that Stark has made him out to be. The only bit of luck is that Thor’s face is obscured as he clings to him, his head pressed into the crook of Loki’s neck. 

The film cuts to Tony Stark in front of microphones imploring every citizen to be the eyes and ears of the Avengers, if they see anyone fitting their descriptions to report it immediately to the authorities. 

“Well played, Stark,” Loki whispers as he watches Stark’s heartfelt plea to the general public.

The news report doesn’t reveal the identity of the kidnapped boy and with his face hidden it is unlikely that he will be recognized, though Loki is certain that a brilliant mind like Stark’s has figured out by now that the child in his arms is the absent God of Thunder. 

The Avengers can’t very well admit that the child in question is Thor. Not only would that bring the criminals out of the woodwork, realizing their chance at wreaking havoc without the wrath of the Avengers’s most powerful lackey, it would also put Thor’s safety in jeopardy. Through his work with the Avengers, Thor has accrued quite a few enemies on Midgard and in his current state would present an irresistible target to those who would see him vanquished.

Loki decides that a change of scenery is in order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big Author's Note of Doom:
> 
> This is my first multi-chapter fic in years, so I'm a bit shy to post it because of the sheer awesomeness of the contributors in the Thor/Avengers fandom. (Like, seriously, you guys blow my mind.) But this little seed of an idea just grew and grew and grew until I felt like I just had to share it.
> 
> Things to know: 
> 
> \- Though this is a WIP, the whole story is plotted out and at the time of this writing is roughly 18,000 words and growing. 
> 
> \- This is a GEN story and will remain that way. I know my other works are Thorki, but this story will not ever be that. (I've got other fic/art in the works that is Thorki, so if that's your cuppa, stay tuned.)
> 
> \- All mistakes are my own and I'm going off of movie-canon here, which I know is a bit different from the comics. 
> 
> \- I drew some artwork inspired by this kid!Thor idea because, like I said, it took over my brain like a weed. [You can find the sketch here on tumblr.](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/30923657487/kid-thor-and-loki-ive-been-talking-about-my)
> 
> Lastly, if you are interested in more of my fangirl ramblings about Thor, Loki, Thorki and this kid!Thor fic, [please feel free to drop by my LJ.](http://griseldajane.livejournal.com/) I'm happy to hear from others for discussion, fangirl squeeing and feedback! 
> 
>  
> 
> Yeah, so this neurotic, very verbose author is gonna shut up now. Thanks everybody-- I sincerely hoped you enjoyed the first part!


	2. Part Two: ebb and flow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For all his defenses, his magicks, his toughened scars, his perfected mask of hatred, Loki is completely unprepared for Thor’s pure, innocent affection, which slips between his rib bones like a whetted knife, irrevocably piercing his heart.

**GODCHILD**  
\-- PART TWO --

With the promise of a great storm, the sky stretches endlessly over the deserted beach in a single sheet of unblemished gray that extends well beyond the horizon. The air is crisp and salty and coats Loki’s skin like a shroud made of wind. Loki enjoys it-- he even enjoys the briny scent of the ocean and the feel of sand beneath his feet. 

Thor sprints up and down the beach, chasing and running from the crashing tide as if it’s a game. As Loki watches his brother play, he knows he chose their location well. A little boy has lots of energy to fritter away and needs a suitable place to expend it. The weather this time of year is dreary for most Midgardians, and will likely only get worse as the season advances. They’ll find the privacy they require here during the winter months.

Loki has rented them a modest cottage on the easternmost coast of Massachusetts. During the winter months on Cape Cod, the rental properties of the town of Wematin are mostly vacant, and the year round communities are small and isolated, making for an excellent place to lay low and raise a young Asgardian prince. They’ll have about five months of solitude before tourist season starts in earnest, which is more than enough time to come up with a long-term plan, if one is even necessary.

With the bulk of the country spread out before him, Loki would be expected to go west, to hide somewhere in middle america, or farther. They could have gone anywhere in the world, anywhere in the nine realms save for Asgard and Jotunheim, but wandering too far from the site of Thor’s transformation makes Loki uneasy. He does not yet know if this earth magic is tied to the land itself with roots like a tree that could harm Thor if he is abruptly yanked from its place of origin.

Abandoning Mjolnir does not sit well with Loki, either. Mjolnir is a source of great power, one that Loki had coveted jealously for many years. It is also an extension of Thor himself and when Thor is bereft of the hammer, his fingers tend to twitch as if trying to stretch loose the pain of a phantom limb. With all that’s happened, Loki wants to stray no more than a few hours from Thor’s cherished weapon. 

_What am I doing?_ Loki thinks suddenly. _Taking in a child, not just any child, but Thor..._

He watches Thor stomping around on the shore after a waddling seagull and a feeling scrapes across his chest, tight and splintering like a felled tree drying up in the sun. A mere week ago nothing but pure hatred for his brother hung heavy in his heart. Now his emotions have fractured and are mending into a different shape entirely.

 _Nonsense,_ Loki thinks, shoving this new feeling down. _Even I am not so heartless a monster to have left a small child wandering the streets of New York City._

He resolutely does _not_ think about the fact that he could have easily left Thor for the Avengers to look after.

Thor crouches suddenly and digs in the wet sand with his fingers before pulling something from the water’s edge. He spots Loki and runs to him, weaving back and forth in the shifty surface of sand. His cheeks and nose are red, his breath visible in the air and his eyes are bright with joy.

“Look what I found,” Thor says, holding out his hand. There’s a brown and white scalloped shell resting in his little palm. It’s fairly large, covering most of his hand, and other than particles of sand clinging to it, the shell is pristine with no cracks or chips along its edges.

“That’s quite a specimen you have, Thor,” Loki says and Thor beams at him.

“You have this one,” Thor says, wiping his sleeve against his runny nose. “I’ll find another.” And he turns swiftly to run back to the shoreline.

“Wait a moment, brother,” Loki says. “It’s too cold for you to spend any more time out in this weather.”

“No, I’m not cold,” Thor protests. “Let me keep looking!” He clasps his hands together in a display of pleading and does his best not to shiver.

“A few minutes more,” Loki relents and Thor lets out a cheerful whoop before charging down the beach. A grin spreads along Loki’s face as he watches his brother run across the sand.

“Stay out of the water!” Loki shouts after him, shaking his head. Common sense was never a contender for Thor’s attention, it seems. Even as a child, Thor’s exuberance for life rules his head. Hopefully, by the time Loki is through with him Thor will have learned some semblance of intelligence.

Thor manages to wheedle twenty more minutes of playtime before Loki demands they return inside. He pouts and trudges along, but he willingly places his hand in Loki’s, and by the time they reach the back porch of the cottage, Thor is eagerly kicking the sand from his shoes and happily charges into the house. 

The cottage is single floored rectangle with a deeply gabled roof, graying wood shingle siding with white trim and a deck that juts into a scrap of backyard where the path to the beach is. There are dried up hydrangea bushes creeping about the front of the house and a driveway made up entirely of crushed, sun-bleached white seashells that pop and crunch underfoot.

With its out of date furnishings, the inside is modest and quaint, but there are two bedrooms and a small living space adjoining a kitchenette, which will be adequate for two to share. Under better circumstances, Loki would _never_ choose a place like this for himself, but he knows when they step inside that it is exactly right for their current situation.

*****

The life Thor and Loki now share proceeds with a series of minor adjustments, little gives and takes from both sides as they strive to find a balance. It irritates Loki that Thor doesn’t know even a fraction of their tumultuous century-spanning history. This Thor hasn’t lived it yet, has yet to transgress against Loki. His innocence pulls the wind from the sails of Loki’s anger, and Loki idles there, drifting in his own bitterness, watching an oblivious little Thor cavorting about, blind to his inner malaise.

It helps Loki some to think of Thor-the-child as a separate entity from Thor-the-adult. Once he does this, a lot of his pent up emotions dispel and his attitude towards Thor improves. Just as this Thor has done nothing to him, Loki has not harmed or deceived little Thor either. This Thor doesn’t even realize that the man he calls brother has nearly succeeded in killing him on several occasions. It’s almost like having the slate wiped clean. It’s likely the closest they will ever come to having a second chance at brotherhood.

Thor also struggles to adjust to his abruptly new surroundings. While he’s sweet and curious and full of his characteristic optimism, Thor’s moods change quickly and sometimes reveal a temperamental, more sullen side. Part of this is stress, having gone through a complete physical and mental upheaval not to mention bearing the heavy yoke of sorcery that continually binds him. 

The other part is simply that he’s young and has not known much in his short, spoiled five years. Thor’s life so far has been that of a pampered prince, knowing nothing but indulgence and adoration. He ambles around the cottage heedless of the disarray he leaves in his wake and oblivious to anything but his own whims.

Loki will take care of Thor within reason, but he is not one to coddle his brother. It would do Thor well to learn a little modesty and culpability for his actions and Loki lets him know it before their first week at the cottage is up.

“Thor, you simply cannot leave a mess wherever you go,” Loki says as he surveys the dishes from breakfast left where they were abandoned. “I am your brother, not your servant.”

Thor looks at him with his chin raised and chest puffed and says, “I’m a prince,” and the notion that a prince does _not_ do dishes is implied. Thor is testing him, seeing what he can get away with, as children are wont to do. Unfortunately for Thor, he can’t get anything past Loki.

“A spoiled brat is what you are,” Loki replies. “You are not in Asgard now and must adapt to your new situation. You have to take responsibility for yourself.”

“Take me home, then!” Thor shouts, his temper flaring. 

Loki gives him a leveling glare and says, “No.”

“I _want_ to go _home_ ,” Thor demands, and in a fit of pique flips his glass onto the floor. 

Loki watches the glass bounce and spin on the tile floor until it comes to a rest against the base of the refrigerator. His eyes dart to Thor’s insolent face and he says, “We don’t always get what we want in life. Now pick that up.”

 _“No,”_ Thor retorts, balling his hands into fists at his sides. 

“You will not leave this kitchen until you pick up that cup and clean the mess you’ve made,” Loki commands. It’s a simple task, one that should take Thor less than ten minutes. He should make Thor wash the dishes by hand but the boy will make more of a mess trying to use the sink unsupervised than he already has.

Thor is stubborn, his mood unreasonably dark, and he challenges Loki’s threat by turning to leave. He takes no more than two steps before he plows into an invisible wall and is knocked flat onto his backside. Scrambling to his feet, he again tries to step through the informal line between the kitchen and living space only to be repelled once more.

“Loki!” Thor shouts, his eyes flashing with outrage. “Release me!” he demands.

“Get yourself out,” Loki replies as he walks unencumbered through the barrier he’s conjured to sit on the couch with his spell books. “You know what you have to do.”

“This is unfair!” Thor rages, stamping his foot.

The boy is as stubborn as a bilgesnipe and stands with his arms folded for a long while. When he realizes that his demands will not be met, Thor tests all the open areas he can, trying to find a weak spot in the magical force field. Thor is a small creature now and Loki can keep him repelled for several hours if he has to, though he hopes it will not take that long for Thor to relent. 

Loki is deep into his reading when he finally hears Thor sigh in resignation. Though not happy about it, he doesn’t break anything as he collects his dirty dishes and puts them into the sink. He’s nearly too short for the task, but Thor manages without making too much noise. He spends several minutes wiping the floor and the table with a dish towel before adding that to the sink.

Thor takes a hesitant step over the threshold of the kitchen and smiles with relief when he’s able to pass through unhindered. Thor throws Loki a nasty look, one that he clearly stole from the trickster himself, as he makes a beeline past the couch to his bedroom. Loki steels his features to remain unmoved, though he really wants to laugh instead at such a display of petulance.

*****

Finding the door to Thor’s room ajar, Loki peers through the gap to catch a glimpse of what his de-aged older brother is up to. It’s been far too quiet for far too long and that usually means Thor is meddling in things that oughtn’t be meddled in.

Thor lays on his bed staring up at the ceiling with an unfocused gaze. The boy is clearly lost in thought. This is not what Loki expected and curiosity rouses within him. The Thor Loki remembers would not have taken time out of his active day to mull over anything. Perhaps this is a development of his older incarnation. Loki does not know what his brother is really like now, apart from the moments spent dueling on the battlefield. The boy seems to be a combination of both past and present Thor.

A sense of despondency and fatigue dim Thor’s natural brightness. Carrying a great burden about his person, Thor seems a thousand years old again, a troubling mien on a five year old’s frame. He doesn’t spare Loki a glance as he enters the room and stands by the bed.

“Sulking does not suit you, brother,” Loki says. 

At the sound of his voice, Thor turns his head towards Loki, but remains glum, his blue eyes devoid of their usual spark.

“Come, Thor, you must learn to accept your failings with the grace befitting a sovereign,” Loki says. “You cannot go through life expecting others to do things for you all the time.”

Thor nods and looks away again. Though his anger is often considerable, Thor never can hold onto it for very long. There’s something else troubling him then.

“I want to go home to Asgard,” Thor says quietly before Loki can ask. “Mother must be missing me,” he says. What he really means is that _he_ misses _her,_ but Thor’s pride has already been wounded today and so he will not admit it.

“I know,” Loki says. “But we’re going to figure this out together and then soon enough you’ll be able to go wherever you please."

“How long will it take?” Thor asks.

With a sigh Loki admits, “I don’t know. What binds you is very complicated seidr, Thor. I need you to be patient. Can you do that for me?”

Thor closes his eyes, not quite hiding the look of disappointment appearing there, and nods his assent. This whole experience has been quite a lot for the boy to bear, and though it does not excuse his bad behavior, he is far too young to be so depressed.

“Are you planning to mope all day?” Loki asks him. “Because I thought you might like to expend some of that temperament by running around on the beach.”

“Can I go swimming?” Thor asks, perking up. “There’s still daylight.”

 _“No,_ of course not,” Loki laughs. “I know you _think_ you are invincible, but the water will certainly freeze you to death.”

“Will you play with me, then?” Thor asks earnestly. 

Loki hardly believes the answer passing over his lips, but he hears himself say, “yes” and then Thor is a flurry of activity, hastening to find his shoes and jacket before Loki changes his mind.

For a fleeting instant, Loki wonders if Thor asked for something outrageous first to make his second request seem more reasonable. It’s certainly something Loki might have done himself, but perhaps he’s giving the little imp too much credit, he thinks as he watches Thor hop on one foot while hurrying to pull his sneakers on.

All in all playing with Thor is not an entirely intolerable experience. Thor finds something called a ‘frisbee’ in a basket of beach toys on the back porch and is content to chase after it as Loki hurls the plastic discus towards him. 

_Just like a dog,_ Loki thinks. _Thor, my little golden retriever._

As before, his Jotun biology agrees with the temperature and the soughing of the waves against the shore soothes his frayed edges. It’s a simple game they play, but Thor’s needs are much simpler now and Loki finds he doesn’t mind engaging in uncomplicated diversions for once.

Thor runs farther down the beach, doubling the distance between them, and shouts to him, “Try to throw it to me _now!”_

And Loki does.

*****

As the sun sets, silence descends upon the little seaside town, a complete contrast to the hustle and bustle of New York City, where quiet does not exist _ever._ After spending the past two hours trawling through his own handwritten notes on various magicks, Loki finally admits that there is nothing within his own repertoire that will benefit Thor's condition. Tossing the leather bound journal aside, Loki rubs the heels of his hands into his eye sockets with a short sigh.

As powerful and well-versed as he is, the seidr binding Thor is unknown to him. It's as maddening as it is frightening, a challenge and a damnation at once. Loki is tempted by this magic. Questions devour him as untapped potential ripens before his eyes and Loki knows then as he hungers that he could be seduced into a trap in the pursuit of this breathtakingly potent sorcery. He will have to be careful. 

The only certainty he knows is that the magic is terra based and not from an other-worlder like himself. The snares within Thor have the same pulse as the lifebeat that runs through all living things on this planet. Some unfortunate earth creature has the _temerity_ to meddle with Thor. 

The hex that churns in winding tendrils under Thor's skin is specifically designed for him as evidenced by the intricate way it’s woven through his being. It is not some random trap that Thor unwittingly fell into. It is a cage purposed specifically for his shape. This gives Loki pause.

 _What is to be gained by transforming Thor into a child?_ Loki wonders. _And then to_ leave _the poor boy there to die from exposure..._

Perhaps the creature took what it needed already and Loki does not yet understand.

Thor’s abrupt scream jolts him from his musings. As Loki hurries to his brother’s room, he glances at the clock in the kitchen, observing the time, noting that Thor had only been asleep for a few hours. The nightmares started earlier tonight than usual. 

This, too, has become part of their daily routine.

When he opens the door, Thor is more distressed this time than he typically is. He’s sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head buried in his hands as if he can physically push the disturbing nightmares from his mind. Thor has only woken up screaming a handful of times and sometimes doesn’t even rouse at all until Loki wakes him from disturbed tossing and turning. 

Loki sweeps in, collecting Thor into an embrace and soothes, “It’s all right, dearheart.” As Loki holds him close, he feels the pounding of Thor’s little heart thumping against him, Thor’s hot tears wetting his neck. A rush of helpless ire coils inside him. 

Thor is vulnerable and exposed and Loki can't stop himself-- he _needs_ to make everything all right for this sweet little boy.

“Tell me,” Loki urges, but Thor shakes his head, his blond locks tickling Loki’s cheek. Thor refuses to talk about his dreams, but Loki can well guess that the dark magic embedded in his person is to blame. Thor still doesn’t trust him completely, Loki reasons. He won’t share that part of himself yet. Thor is brave and wants to put on a brave front for his brother. 

Whatever he dreamed is particularly nasty and it takes nearly ten minutes for Thor’s sobs to dwindle. His little fist still has a deathgrip on Loki’s shirt and in a moment of compassion, Loki hefts Thor up into his arms. 

“Let’s not make this a habit,” Loki says as he carries him into his bedroom. “But tonight, if it will ease your mind, you can stay with me.” Putting Thor down in his bed, Loki whispers comfort into his ear until his red-rimmed eyes fall shut and he drifts off into sleep. Typically, Thor only wakes once a night with nightmares, but Loki worries that his dreams are still tormented when he returns to slumber.

Either way, Loki can do nothing and it angers him.

*****

Driving is one of the more horrifying aspects of Midgard. Not the actual operating of a motor vehicle, but the fact that these high speed metal transports are controlled by the simpletons of this realm. While Loki appreciates how the people of Earth have bypassed their limitations with sophisticated technology, he does not deem even half the population worthy to wield such machinery.

Basically, any idiot can acquire a license. After witnessing first hand the stupidity of city drivers, he vowed to avoid setting foot inside a Midgardian transport if it could be avoided. 

By comparison to New York City, Wematin is sprawling, with miles between the market and their cottage. It is too quiet here to simply vanish and appear magically at his whim, especially since the whole purpose of retreating to this hibernating town was to hide. He cannot blend into a crowd if there are no crowds to blend into. Though he deems the intelligence of the people here far below his own, Loki is fairly certain he would be noticed appearing and disappearing into a shop the size of a matchbox. 

So it’s with some reluctance that Loki buckles Thor into the vehicle he’s acquired and takes them downtown to obtain supplies to stock their larder. It’s not difficult to operate a car and from living in various cities around the world, he’d already learned the simple light system Midgardians have designed to create some semblance of order on the roads. 

Thor is fascinated by the car ride. The town is gray and sleeping in the heart of winter, but it must be radiant in the spring with a warm breeze and the serene roar of the ocean surrounding it. Thor doesn’t remember traveling to Wematin this way because Loki had driven them in the dead of night and the child had fallen asleep within minutes of getting on the interstate.

Glued to the window, Thor watches the landscape whirl by with the rows of cottages along the beach, ships bobbing in the harbor, boxy houses with small patches of greenery, people bicycling along the boardwalk, a schoolyard with children running about, and is transfixed by the mortal world racing past him. 

The downtown is quiet with rows of shops and restaurants mostly deserted this time of day. Thor hops down from the car and looks around with interest. He’s never seen anything like Midgard before.

“Come on,” Loki says, holding out his hand and Thor takes it as he skips across the pavement. 

Loki lets Thor choose whatever he wants from the grocery store, lets him push the carriage and explore the aisles. Though, he _does_ stop Thor from sending an entire endcap of soup cans from raining down on top of him when he decides to pull one from the bottom. 

When Thor reaches up on tiptoe to a high shelf and pulls down a blue box containing something called "Pop Tarts", Loki eyes the box suspiciously, but doesn't object as Thor drops it into the carriage. They stock the cart with enough provisions to last them at least a month and Loki hopes to make as few trips into the town center as possible.

The whole excursion takes two hours. Thor shows off his strength by insisting on carrying the heavy bundles from the car into the cottage himself. Loki doesn’t have the heart to tell him that he’s barely stronger than any other five year old at the moment. As Thor grows, his godly strength will too, until puberty hits when his power will shoot up and he’ll seemingly transform into a full grown man overnight (at least, that’s how Loki remembers it). 

No sooner do they put away their provisions than Thor says, “I’m hungry.”

Having been raised a prince, Loki never had need to prepare meals for himself, and generally doesn't, having little desire to cook when prepared food is so easy to come by. Cooking is simple enough, though, along the same vein as potion making. Loki has grown accustomed to not eating very much himself, though in his youth his appetite rivaled that of his brother, who’d been known on occasion to give Volstagg a run for his money.

A young and growing god, Thor needs to eat regular meals. Loki could use sorcery to conjure an elaborate spread, and does on occasion, but cooking is something he and Thor can discover together.

Thor sits on the counter, his legs dangling over the edge and watches with fascination as Loki cracks an egg into the bowl.

“Can I break one?” Thor asks.

“All right, but you must be gentle,” Loki says and hands Thor an egg.

Thor smashes the egg against the edge of the bowl, shell and yolk and whites splattering everywhere. Frowning, he examines his work and says, “I got shell in it.”

Loki waves his hand and the egg, shell bits and all, disappears from the bowl. “Try again,” he says handing Thor a new egg. "More wrist, less shoulder."

It takes Thor six tries before he manages to get a clean break. “I did it!” he shouts, throwing his hands in the air. “Another!”

“How about you mix the ingredients together instead?” Loki suggests handing him a wire whisk, and Thor puts his enthusiasm into whipping the batter together. Loki lets Thor pour the batter into the frying pan, and though each pancake is odd shaped they still taste delicious.

Pride in their joint venture pools in his chest, a warm weight, and the feeling dredges up a faint memory. A fragment from his childhood resurfaces, the two of them sneaking about in the kitchens well after evening meal, working together to pilfer more of the cook’s famous sweet breads. It’s a whisper, but irrevocably still there and Loki hangs onto it, slips it into a pocket of his mind for safekeeping, realizing that there are moments from their shared childhood when he had actually enjoyed Thor’s company, a time when they’d had honest fun together.

Afterwards, when is Loki clearing the dishes, Thor sidles up to him, bringing his empty plate sticky with maple syrup up to the sink. 

“Loki?” Thor asks. 

“Yes, what is it?” Loki replies, taking his dish and submerging it in the soapy water. He has half a mind to magically scour these dishes and be done with it, but he wants to set an example for Thor, who needs to learn how to do things for himself instead of expecting everything to be done for him, which did nothing but feed his arrogance the first time around.

“Can I go to school?” Thor asks apropos of nothing.

The soapy plate slips through his hands and splashed into the sink and Loki turns to stare at him, astounded. “You-- you _want_ to go to school, Thor?”

It’s one of those rare moments when Thor has actually managed to catch him off guard. Thor was never one for book lessons, unless it was about strategy. He had much preferred the physical, learning the ways of fighting and battle and left the books to Loki. As far as Loki knew, Midgardian education did not teach warfare tactics at any age.

“Thor, why do you want to go school?” Loki asks, folding his damp arms across his chest.

Thor opens his mouth to answer but hesitates, shooting a quick look up at Loki and then away again, clearly worried about what Loki is going to think. 

“You can tell me,” Loki assures him. 

“I saw other kids,” Thor says. “When we went to the market. Kids were playing at the school. They were throwing a ball around and chasing each other.”

“And you want to play too,” Loki reasons. “You want some friends.”

“Yeah,” Thor says.

While Loki is fairly certain he could thrive without company for at least a hundred years, Thor has always needed companionship. All Thor knows is his days in Asgard that were filled with servants and playmates and visits with his parents while being trotted around court for all to fawn over. Unaccustomed to such little attention, the child is lonely.

“School is more than just playing, Thor,” Loki says. “You’ll have to sit through lessons and study and read books.”

Thor nods. “Then I can help,” he says. Loki frowns, and before he can ask, Thor picks up one of Loki’s spell books from the table. “You read through these because... because I got little.” 

Loki’s frown deepens. He doesn’t like the implication behind those words at all. “Thor, you know that what happened to you isn’t your fault, don’t you?” Loki asks.

Thor gaze slides to his feet. The brother Loki remembers from their childhood was carefree and without contrition, but this Thor has displayed quite a bit of guilt, a trait undoubtedly learned by his adult self. 

“This was acted upon you, Thor,” Loki says. He lays a hand on the back of Thor’s neck, feeling the thrum of sorcery bristling beneath Thor’s skin. “There was very little you could have done.”

“Was it because I was bad?” Thor asks, his blue eyes seeking Loki’s, reluctant, afraid--

“No,” Loki says, dispelling the ridiculous notion. This is the second time Thor has questioned whether he’d done something bad and it bothers Loki like a sore tooth he can’t stop tonguing. Thor and _badness_ do not belong in the same sentence.

“Why ever would you think that?” Loki asks.

Thor shrugs, a non answer, his standard reply to anything he doesn’t want to think about. He still won’t talk about his nightmares, but Loki suspects his nightly terrors are the cause of his afflicted conscience. Soon, he will make Thor tell him whether his brother wants to or not.

“Can I go to school, then?” Thor asks. He’s not subtle about changing the subject, but Loki lets him get away with it for the time being. 

“Yes,” Loki replies and is promptly tackled by the jubilant five year old.

Loki lets out an _oof_ of exertion and holds Thor gently. If he lives for another millenia, Loki does not think he’ll ever get used to Thor’s demonstrative nature.

*****

Throwing caution to the wind, Loki grins and writes _Thor Odinson_ on the Wematin Elementary School application. He probably should not take this risk, but it’s just the kind of trick Loki likes, one that’s based in truth. Thor’s name could be a big red flag to Stark, however, Loki doubts the Wematin school system is on the Avengers’s radar and the people of this town can do very little to challenge him should they put two and two together and come out with Thor Odinson is _the_ Thor. Sometimes hiding in plain sight is the best plan, especially when everyone who knows of him expects Loki to cloak them both in subterfuge.

Stark and the rest of his foolish team won’t think that he, one who is deemed _super villain_ in this realm, would ever enroll Thor in something so trite as school. No, they must imagine he’s keeping Thor in a moldy cellar locked in an iron cage. Or worse, the Avengers might imagine that he’s murdered Thor, as if Loki would be so shameful as to slaughter a defenseless child. Fully powered God of Thunder is one thing. Vulnerable, innocent five year old is quite another.

It’s absurd to him, but these assumptions will keep the Avengers off their trail.

Loki fleetingly thinks to change his brother’s name to Laufeyson for simplicity's sake and for the perverse pleasure of seeing Thor’s name preceding it. But the name Laufeyson will lead to questions that Loki does not want tiptoe around, mostly _why is your surname different from mine and that of the monstrous King of Jotunheim?_ One of the few things Thor still knows to be true is that he is an Odinson and so Odinson he shall remain.

And then it dawns on Loki that Thor doesn’t yet know that Loki is not his biological brother. Loki sighs dramatically, for purely his own benefit, as he realizes that he’s going to have to be an Odinson once more.

But school _is_ an excellent solution to the time management problem Loki has been having. When Thor is in school, there will be around four hours each weekday for Loki to fully invest in magical pursuits while the rest of his day will belong to Thor. And for Thor, he’ll find routine and structure and companionship-- all things which he needs and is currently lacking.

That night they have a long talk about appropriate and inappropriate topics for school, what Thor can and cannot say to his teachers and friends under any circumstances. Thor is not allowed to talk about Asgard or sorcery or the fact that he used to be an adult and is now once again a child. He can’t tell anyone that he’s not only a prince, but will one day be a king.

“But why?” Thor asks him. “It’s the truth.”

“Because Midgardians are simple minded, Thor, and are frightened by things they do not understand,” Loki explains. “If they find out who you really are, they will take you away from me. You will be locked up and studied by a group of costumed men and they will keep us apart. You wouldn’t want that, would you, brother?”

“No, they can’t do that!” Thor shouts. “Can they?”

“I promise you, they will try,” Loki says, keeping his expression grave when he really wants to laugh at how comically wide Thor’s eyes become with alarm. 

Thor promises everyday until they’re standing in the schoolyard that he won’t reveal their secret. In the end, Loki is glad he let Thor keep his name because the child seems so unsure of himself when Loki brings him to the school on his first day. It’s nothing like their lessons on Asgard. They’d both been instructed by private tutors, together and separately, until they’d reached their teenage years and even then Thor’s peers had only expanded to include the Warrior’s Three and the Lady Sif.

The school yard is filled with hundreds of students, although Loki was told that Thor’s class will have twenty other students.

He’s mindful of Thor’s anxiety, but Loki is really watching the teachers and parents as they herd children into lines, looking for telltale traces of recognition on their faces.

While living in New York, Loki discovered that if he wears customary clothing and keeps to himself, he can move about unrecognized and it seems the same here in Wematin. Most people do not want to see a killer in their midst and so they do not. He can always hide himself, step into a shadow and disappear, or even shapeshift, but Loki prefers to conserve his energy. He never knows when he’ll need to strike hard and fast, and with Thor in his custody he would have to double his efforts to protect them both.

As they reach the line where his classmates are waiting, Thor slings his new backpack over his shoulder, looking up at Loki, his eyes filled with both apprehension and excitement. “You’ll come back at the end of the day?” Thor asks him.

“Yes, I’ll be here. Two o’clock, I won’t forget,” Loki says.

“Okay,” Thor replies. He throws his free arm around Loki, hugging him once more before marching off to the head of the line to introduce himself to his teacher. It’s the same determination Thor’s always shown when faced with a challenge and it brings a small smile to Loki’s face.

*****

There’s a stillness to the cottage that Loki can scarcely believe. The place feels hollowed out and devoid of life, just a set of empty rooms without Thor to liven them up. Loki stands in the front doorway and lets the silence wash over him. This is the first moment of true solitude he’s had in weeks. He’s glad for the privacy, but it is surreal not to have Thor underfoot. Loki reflects on how quickly he has grown accustomed to his face.

Loki crosses the room to the glass door overlooking the tiny backyard. The sky is a bright blue behind the tufts of white clouds lazing across the horizon. Stepping out onto the back porch, the faint knell of wind chimes clanging in the gentle breeze, Loki breathes deep, the cold air at once calming and invigorating. His inclination towards colder climates no longer pains him as it did when the truth of his Jotun heritage was first revealed to him. 

_How poorly timed it all was,_ he reflects, finding out the way he did, when Thor had been banished and with Odin on the precipice of sleep. _If things had been different--_

Loki shakes the thought from his head. Wallowing in that which can never be changed is of no use to him. Time marches forth without discrimination, unyielding to the will of others, no matter how desperately they wish it to run backwards. While time can’t be stopped or reversed, Thor’s current state is proof that it can be manipulated in certain cases. 

A gray squirrel darts across the faded grass, grabbing Loki’s attention, and scurries up the trunk of a large oak tree. Loki watches the creature climb, wonders how many generations had scaled this same tree. The oak towers above with immense branches that fan out in a myriad of smaller limbs-- at least three quarters of a century in years, Loki guesses.

Contemplating the oak, Loki steps off the deck and makes his way to the old tree. Putting his hands on the trunk, Loki feels for the sleepy life force contained within. It’s a quiet energy that runs through this life, but mature for this realm, at least seventy years despite it’s slim girth and yet not elderly for a tree.

For a live test subject, it will do. 

Loki needs to understand _how_ it is possible to de-age a living thing, but short of capturing an elderly mortal, there are no living subjects that come even remotely close to Thor’s lifespan that he can experiment on. A tree is not quite the same thing as a person, but it’s a place to start. 

If he can understand how it is done, then maybe he can understand how it was done to Thor. 

Feeling for the rhythms, Loki lets himself drift as he studies the energy patterns with his seidr. The oak’s spirit runs cyclically, winding spirals, though some strains branch off and dwindle to dead ends or abrupt stops, like a limb that’s been severed. To understand how to manipulate such energy, Loki must map out a clear path through the labyrinth of lifeforce, from seedling to present incarnation.

Following the biological flow of a living thing is a difficult road to navigate and Loki exhausts himself before he’s through. His concentration breaks, his orientation tilting like a capsized boat, and he’s suddenly lost, not sure which direction is forwards and which is back. 

Loki opens his eyes and returns to the world, a slight breeze on his face, a faint sound of wind chimes, the many sensations of Wematin encompassing him once more. He clutches the tree for support and looks up it’s tall trunk, wondering how much farther he has to travel before unraveling it’s life secrets. 

It’s then that he notices the sun in a drastically different position from when he started his little experiment and he hurries into the house to check the time. He looks at the clock and gapes-- it’s quarter to two-- he’s lost nearly _four hours_ of time mucking about in that tree.

If he wastes another minute he’s going to be late to pick up Thor and he promised the boy he’d be there right at two o’clock. It only takes about twenty minutes to walk to the school, nevertheless Loki does not want to be late, particularly on Thor’s first day. He is not so depleted that he can’t use a little sorcery and vanishes from the cottage, reappearing in the last bit of forest before the school property begins.

When Loki arrives at the Wematin Elementary playground, he sees his brother chasing after a ball happily with his new friends at his heels. Thor has only been here one day and has already been initiated into a group.

Loki smiles, but he also aches and wonders if these new memories will forever erase their childhood together. A lifetime ago it was Loki at his heels and Thor smiling at him.

But he has something different now-- Thor’s complete adoration. He’s never received affection well, but Loki finds that he must quickly learn to accept it because Thor gives his affection generously. He’s eager to love and be loved. Too young to understand Loki’s wariness, Thor interprets it as rejection.

To see the naked hurt on Thor’s little face actually shames him. For all his defenses, his magicks, his toughened scars, his perfected mask of hatred, Loki is completely unprepared for Thor’s pure, innocent affection, which slips between his rib bones like a whetted knife, irrevocably piercing his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to the interwebs, Wematin is an Algonquin word that means "brother". I thought it was rather perfect for the name of the town they hide away in. 
> 
> This was such a dense chapter! Lots of set up, lots of domestic stuff, but I truly hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> All mistakes = mine. 
> 
> Thanks to all of you who have taken the time to comment and kudos! I'm thrilled that anyone's read this at all, but as per usual I would still love feedback :)
> 
> A bit of self promotion, if you will--> You can [follow griseldajane on tumblr](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/) for Thor and Thorki fanart. Reblogging encouraged! :D
> 
> You can also [head over to LJ](http://griseldajane.livejournal.com/), if you feel so inclined, to chat and flail about fandom. I tend to post more casually over there and I love hearing from people. 
> 
> Okay, that's it for this update. Thanks everyone! Next chapter, Loki will learn more about what's going on with Thor and his transformation.


	3. Part Three: Stalling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki does not know how he got _here,_ how his pure hatred for Thor turned so quickly to love, how the monster became a man again. Without magic or force of will, this little boy has changed him somehow, and Loki thinks that perhaps he’s already gone too far down this road, for the path behind him is as unclear as the one laid out before him.

\-- PART THREE --

 

It’s early still, the sun barely warming the nighttime sky to a dusky pink as Loki steps into Thor’s bedroom. His brother is nested under the covers of his bed with nothing but a tuft of blond hair peeking out from under the blankets and, judging from the cadence of his soft breathing, is deeply, soundly asleep.

Loki watches him for a quiet moment, feeling a burden of affection settle around him like an iron cloak before he flicks on the lightswitch and goes towards the bed.

“Up, rise up,” Loki says, throwing back the comforter, uncovering the sleepy five year old from his burrow of pillows and bed sheets. Thor groans and pulls a pillow over his head. He lies still, a pantomime of sleep and Loki is not fooled.

“Thor,” Loki prompts as the youngster pretends not to hear him. “Don’t make me tell you twice,” he warns.

Obstinate as ever and exhausted besides, Thor continues to ignore Loki in favor of as much sleep as possible even if it’s only a few seconds worth. Turning his hands cold, Loki runs them up Thor’s exposed legs eliciting a yelp from the youngster. Thor scrambles, rolling himself off the bed and falls in a heap of sheets and pillows onto the floor.

With a dramatic sigh, Thor stands and trudges past Loki into the bathroom. Mornings are hard for Thor. Without one night of uninterrupted sleep since this whole ordeal began, Thor requires a lot of prodding from Loki to get ready for school in the mornings. Loki is not without sympathy, but the same routine every morning does grow tiresome.

Weeks have flown by in a heartbeat and it’s already several days into the month of March. Loki lets himself slide, becoming lax and indulgent, descending further into this anomalous fantasy with Thor, where he is the ideal doting parent and Thor his endearing little child.

Loki _is_ rather pleased with himself. While they do have their differences (Thor’s obstinate nature is apparently inborn), Thor is not in want of anything, seems genuinely happy, and is well on his way to being more balanced under Loki’s care.

There’s an ache within Loki, wound tight at his core like a snarl of twine. Loki did not realize how deep the hurt twisted inside him until Thor came along and loosened it little by little. Someone truly depends on him now, someone whose needs cannot be ignored, whose love is freely given, and the anger holing up inside takes a position of lesser prominence in his heart.

Though he’s slowed somewhat in his research, staving off progress to explore this new relationship with Thor, Loki cannot ignore how this hex taxes his brother in body and spirit. The incessant nightmares have taken their toll, passing a shadow over Thor and he lapses into these moments of lethargy, his whole spirit wilting like a neglected house plant. Loki takes note, quietly keeping a tally, and as these moments accrue, he feels less and less at ease.

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Most days Thor wants to ride the bus with his friends instead of walking to school with Loki. Loki is not offended because it gives the boy an extra fifteen minutes to sleep in the morning and quite frankly Thor could use every one of them.

The bus stop is at the end of the street and Loki watches Thor wait there from the cottage’s shell-piece driveway. He would wait _with_ him at the stop, but Thor wanted some independence and said as much, to Loki’s great amusement.

The yellow bus rolls to a stop and the kids waiting there line up to get inside. Thor looks back as he approaches the door, waving to Loki before bounding into the bus. Rolling his eyes, Loki waves back, but with a small smile on his face. When Thor is onboard and the bus drives from view, Loki lingers for just a moment, checking to make sure no one is around, before vanishing into thin air.

An instant later, he’s in New York City. Accosted immediately by the putrid air of the city, Loki wrinkles his nose in disgust as he makes his way towards the site where he found Thor nearly two months ago. Beautiful, sea-side Wematin has spoiled him, coddled his senses, which are once again affronted by the seediness and wayward volume of a major metropolitan area.

Loki is no stranger to the dark underbelly of society, has little problem delving into its depths and making himself at home, but he’s never _enjoyed_ it. And why would he when his birthright promised him so much more?

The alleyway has been sectioned off to the public under the guise of construction scaffolding, but once Loki makes his way around the barricade, he sees several SHIELD agents positioned around Mjolnir. Thor would be touched to find that his mortal friends see fit to babysit his hammer, though Loki knows it’s a fool’s errand. No one in all the nine realms can move Mjolnir an iota save for Thor and the All-father.

He’s hidden himself from mortal view with a shroud of sorcery and is wholly unconcerned about being discovered by the SHIELD agents that are guarding Mjolnir. In visiting the place where Thor was transformed, Loki hopes to find clues to help him decipher terran sorcery.

When he runs his fingers down Mjolnir’s handle, it sings a song of remembrance for him and Loki shivers. It’s been a long, _long_ time since he has touched Thor’s cherished weapon (apart from being on the receiving end of a blow) and the magic humming beneath his fingertips rekindles a flame of jealousy.

Oh, what Thor could _do_ with magic such as this and it is _wasted_ on him-- he who prefers to smash his way through life’s challenges when just a little _finesse_ would unleash a level of power more suitable to an enchanted object of this pedigree.

Mjolnir is not sentient per se, but it does possess several traits that make it seem alive, one of which is recognizing those who touch it. Most of Mjolnir’s seemingly sentient traits show themselves to Thor alone, but right now Loki is getting a sense of bereavement from the weapon as if the hammer longs for Thor’s touch. It knows Loki is not its master, but he can still feel magic pulsing along the surface, just as he could when he was a young prince of Asgard.

Remnants of magic linger in this place the way blood and death tarry on a battlefield. There’s a certain feel to it, a unique individual slant, like handwriting. It’s a dialect of a specific magical language that Loki has never heard before. He is a Jotun practicing sorcery, his magical signature must be quite unique given his unusual circumstances and yet at the same time distinctly Aesir for he first learned seidr among the Aesir.

This realm is vast and varied with more cultures than Loki could ever hope to search through one by one. If he can only figure out which culture this magic comes from, he can learn it and perhaps track down the creature itself.

There’s a sudden prickling on the back of his neck, like fingers trailing up the knobs of his spine and Loki gives an involuntary shudder. Turning slowly, Loki surveys the alley carefully.

Someone is there. Someone is watching him through his illusion, though he sees no one at his back.

The SHIELD agents are oblivious to his presence-- one is playing with his smart phone, while the other leans against the brick wall and yawns. It _is_ a pointless job, watching over an object that can’t be moved or harmed and their inattention is not entirely unexpected. It’s not these two, but someone _is_ watching him.

Just to make sure, Loki walks within an arms reach of the pair. They cannot see him. Loki smiles mischievously and blows a breath of cold air onto the phone and the screen suddenly cracks. The agent curses, bewildered and angry, and beckons the other over to see his misfortune, but neither suspect that a wanted frost giant sorcerer is the culprit.

A warm breath tickles his ear, a soundless laugh, and he spins quickly, eyes scanning frantically for the perpetrator. There’s nothing. Reaching out with his magic, he feels for a disturbance and he brushes against something, but it’s fleeting, a quick kiss of power that recedes like the tide.

Loki gives chase, but it’s a fruitless endeavor. Vanished into the shadows from which it came, the creature is gone, leaving nothing but a pall of contemptuous ridicule in its wake.

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Frustration follows him back to the cottage. It’s not often that another gets the best of him. A formidable sorcerer, Loki is not one to be _mocked_ like some second-rate _charlatan_.

There’s time enough before Thor comes home from school and Loki stands before the old oak tree in the backyard. The cold sea wind that whips around him does nothing to salve his ire.

Placing a hand on the trunk, Loki forces his magic inside the oak’s living spirit. Anger rushes him through the path he has already mapped out, climbing through the threads of life none too kindly. If Loki damages the tree, he does not much care. He only desires to locate the starting point of the life force threads, proving to himself and that scornful magical creature that he is not some pawn to be played with.

A tree does not feel pain the way a man would, but that does not mean that a tree doesn’t tremble when it is injured, and it quivers now beneath Loki’s forceful touch.

 _Is this what the creature did to Thor?_ Loki wonders as the threads shake in his hands, going from a pleasant warmth to a screaming heat. _Did the creature tear through him, uncaring how it abused him, if only to reach the beginning of his long life’s path?_

Loki imagines it then, his foolish golden god of a brother forced to his knees as his life is plundered, violently taken apart one thread at a time until he’s stripped naked of all things but his innocence. Loki remembers the red-faced little boy he found that clung so desperately to his neck, how young and vulnerable he seemed-- _traumatized--_

That someone harmed Thor the way Loki is harming this tree _sickens_ him, and it sickens him further to know that a few months earlier Loki would have laughed and reveled in the knowledge that his brother was so violated.

Loki forces his wrath to calm and slows his searching to a gentler pace. He must be patient if he ever hopes to acquire a working knowledge of this magic. Loki knows this. Sorcery and sentiment together yield wild, unpredictable results. And he will not be ruled by his emotions.

Fatigue weighs at his limbs as he treads, but he pushes through it, taking a few steps, and then a few steps more, and then Loki finds himself seventy-four years deep and at the start of the tree’s life tendrils. He’s found a clear way through, laying out the oak’s lifespan threads from the present moment backwards to its genesis.

 

 

 

*****

 

 

When Loki steps back into the cottage, the phone is ringing. A cold streak of alarm runs through him and hastens his steps towards the wall mounted machine. The _only_ reason that phone is ringing is because something’s happened to Thor. Loki setup the ridiculous device because the school needed a way to reach him in case of emergencies and the school is the only one who has this number.

Though his heart races, Loki is not one to panic without cause. He calmly answers the call and is greeted by a pleasant sounding woman whose tone is entirely inappropriate if some accident has befallen his brother. She rambles on about where she’s calling from (the school) and who she is (the principal) as if her call alone isn’t enough to cause alarm.

Impatience makes him blurt out, “Is Thor all right? Has something happened?”

“Oh, everything’s fine-- well, not fine-- but he’s not injured or anything--.”

“What is the purpose of this call?" Loki snaps.

“We’d like for you to come to a parent teacher meeting. We found some drawings in Thor’s desk that are cause for concern.”

At first Loki’s not sure he’s heard correctly. A dozen terrible things had skipped through his mind when the phone rang: Thor had been harmed, he’d injured another child, he started talking about Asgard, the Avengers had shown up. Instead, Thor drew in crayon and the Midgardians are upset? No wonder the people of this planet are so weak.

“Is this necessary?”

It is, in fact, necessary and that’s how Loki lands himself in the principal’s office with Thor’s art teacher and a folder of his brother’s drawings.

Loki keeps his face impassive as he sifts through the stack of drawings, but after leafing through the first few, a growing sense of alarm fills his gut.

There is a drawing of a screaming blue faced devil with red eyes; another of a raging monster being torn in two with an accurate depiction of internal organs falling out; there’s a one eyed man with an angry glare; another with a dark haired woman with long nails; and there’s one of a golden horned man charging a man holding aloft a hammer.

A sense of horror creeps over him as he stares at the image of himself attacking his brother. Dozens of drawings just like these, depictions of violence and anger, make up the stack. Seeing these graphic images piled up like this depicted in Thor’s crude childish scrawl _is_ disturbing, even by Asgardian standards. No child is meant for such things.

Understanding comes to Loki at once. There can be no other explanation-- Thor must remember bits and pieces of his adult life and has drawn out his most disturbing memories-- and unfortunately they’re mostly of his experiences in battle.

Thor has maintained that he doesn’t remember _anything,_ but there can be no other explanation for these drawings.

“These were in the back of his art folder. You can see why we wanted to speak with you,” the principal says. “These drawings are very specific, very adult depictions of violence. Is everything all right at home?"

This woman suspects him, Loki realizes. She is scrutinizing him from across the desk, trying to sense if he’s the kind of man who would hurt a child. Loki keeps himself perfectly passive, but he wants to throttle her and make it clear that in no uncertain terms would he ever hurt Thor.

Of course, it dawns on him that that’s actually not true. He’s hurt Thor plenty, both emotionally and physically, probably more than any other person in his life, now that he thinks of it. But he would never hurt a child and that’s what Thor is now, _his_ child. (He will say this for Midgardians, they are fiercely protective of their children.)

“Do you have any idea where violent images like these could have come into his head?” the principal is asking him.

Loki knows he has to be careful. There are no mortals who could take Thor from him. This does not concern him. What he is concerned with is protecting Thor from unnecessary stress and doing anything to disrupt the sense of normalcy that they’ve established would be destructive to his brother.

Drawing attention to their location is exactly what he needs to avoid. Even a slight misstep would be enough to put them on Stark’s grid. Without Thor on their side, the Avengers would have a difficult time subduing him, but if they discovered their location, it would mean abruptly pulling Thor from Wematin with the possibility of an antagonistic confrontation with Thor’s allies. Loki is not willing to put Thor through that kind of emotional duress.

“I trust you know that Thor is not my son, but my brother,” Loki says. “He was not always in my care. All I can say is that his father is manipulative and does not always put his children’s welfare first. These images must have come into his head before he was my charge. I can assure you that we came here for a change of pace and Thor is still adjusting.”

The bell rings, signaling the end of the school day and the chatter of children and squeaking of sneakers fill the hallway.

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention,” Loki says, standing without her dismissal. “I will speak to Thor about it today.”

He strides from the office out to the school yard where the children are lining up to catch their buses and waits for Thor to appear.

The principal and the art teacher have followed him out and are helping to herd students to their proper places. He knows their eyes are on him as he leans against the fence, but he doesn’t care. Let them watch. If there’s one thing he doesn’t have to lie about, it’s this--

When Thor sees Loki, his whole face lights up and he cuts out of line, running to him with his arms outstretched.

“What are you doing here?” Thor asks as he slams into him, wrapping his tiny arms about his waist, cheek pressing against his hip. “I thought I was taking the bus.”

Loki laughs softly at his brother’s exuberance. It still thrills him, though he knows it should be familiar by now. He crouches in front of Thor to zip up his open jacket.

“I had a meeting here with your teachers,” Loki says and he glances across the schoolyard, catching the principal’s eye, making sure she’s seen just how much Thor adores him.

Thor looks up at him and frowns. “I didn’t see you in class.”

“That’s because it was with your art teacher and the headmaster in the main office,” Loki replies. He slings Thor’s backpack over his shoulder and takes Thor’s hand in his.

They walk silently on the unkempt grass beside the main road. The traffic is intermittent, but picking up, and as always Loki makes sure Thor walks on the outside, farthest from the cars rushing down the street.

“Am I in trouble?” Thor asks, chancing a glance up at his brother.

“No,” he says. “But we need to talk, brother. Your teachers showed me some of your drawings, Thor.”

When Thor doesn’t say anything, Loki prompts, “I wonder, where did you come up with all those wonderfully vivid creatures?”

“I remember my dreams sometimes,” Thor admits.

“The ones that scare you?”

“Yeah,” Thor says. “They’re scary because they’re real.”

“How do you know they are real?” Loki asks.

Thor shivers suddenly and he says, “I just know. I know they are memories... big Thor’s memories-- _my_ memories.”

Loki shakes their clasped hands and says, “Tell me about them. I can help you, if you’ll let me.”

“In my dreams, I am not little,” Thor says. “I am big and always fighting something. Monsters come after me-- They want to hurt me, and take what is mine.” His brows draw together with uneasiness and his mouth curves in a tight frown. “I try to be brave but... it’s scary.”

“Do not dwell on these dreams, brother,” Loki says. “You need not fear. I would never let anyone hurt you.”

Thor stops walking and wrests his hand from Loki’s hold. “I fight you, too,” he says. “You try to hurt me, too.”

Thor’s blue eyes are accusatory. He’s a little boy who’s scared and confused by the images he sees in his head of his one ally attacking him. Loki looks away for a moment, trying to figure out how best to explain their intricate relationship to a five year old.

Lies flow fluidly through his lips, and simply telling Thor that his dreams are nothing but dreams would make everything easier. But the God of Mischief finds that he doesn’t want to lie to child Thor, who is so wholly open and honest that even a simple fabrication would seem a grievous offense against him. Lies did him no favors with Thor the first time around. He wonders what the truth, or something close to it, can accomplish.

“Life is sometimes complicated, Thor,” Loki says. “Do you remember what I told you, about how we grew up together before and now you’re growing up again?”

Thor nods.

“Well, before, sometimes we didn’t get along,” Loki says. “Sometimes brothers fight, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t love each other. Oftentimes that means they love each other very much.”

Thor frowns. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t seem like it would, does it?” Loki says. “But, trust me, brother. It’s very true of adults.” Loki kneels in front of Thor. “How about I make you a pledge?”

“Like a pinky promise?” Thor asks holding up his hand with his little finger extended.

Loki leans back a little and frowns. This pinky promise must be a Midgardian thing Thor’s learned about at school.

“Yes, but even more sacred,” Loki says, wrapping his little finger around Thor’s. His eyes are round and wide as he watches Loki attentively.

“I solemnly swear,” Loki says, “that from this day forth I will be your champion and will protect you from all harm until I have drawn my last breath.”

“You promise?”

“On my honor as your older brother,” Loki says and he pulls Thor’s hand towards him and places a loud kiss on his knuckles, making Thor burst into a delighted giggle.

As they continue their walk, Thor chatters on about his day at school, but Loki is lost in his own thoughts.

Thor is not merely transformed into a boy’s shape, it’s as if he’s been stripped down to his previous incarnation, like whittling down a tree trunk to expose its early rings. Thor is who he was _then,_ at age five. Loki wonders if all is lost, if the Thor beyond five has been permanently destroyed.

 _But his dreams,_ Loki thinks. _His adult memories are surfacing._

If the Thor he’d grown up with were truly gone, wouldn’t his memories be gone too? All the years stripped away must still lurk inside this child somewhere. Little Thor is opened up, like flesh pulled aside to reveal the bone. Loki wonders what will happen if this wound is simply left open-- will new flesh grow overtop, or will it fester? Will Thor grow up to be a man again, or will he wither and die?

That evening, Loki sits with Thor until he falls asleep, ever watchful, and when Thor’s nightmares begin he’s there by his side. A moan escapes Thor’s lips and his brow furrows, but Loki does not wake him. Instead, he presses his palm against Thor’s forehead, letting his eyes fall shut.

While he does not possess the power to read Thor’s mind, Loki can try to follow the physical tendrils of magic that lurk within him, which, if linked to his nightmares as Loki suspects, might grant him a glimpse of what is plaguing Thor so.

At first there’s nothing but a flash, a brief moment of light. Finding his bearings, Loki coaxes the first thread of dark magic to him. A bite of cold shocks him, and Loki muses that this is what a Jotun touch on Aesir flesh must feel like, cutting his hands with such frigidness that he can scarcely maintain his dexterity as he holds onto the magic tendril. It’s very different from the life threads in the tree, which are warm and flow smoothly.

The binding is a direct link to the creature and Loki catches his first glimpse of it. Dark hair, black eyes and long nails flash across his mind with a harrowing roar. Agony burns through him and Loki gasps, startled. Losing his bearing on the magic, he is thrust back to the present moment.

There’s a stinging pain across his throat and Loki glances down at himself and sees blood on his shirt. Clamping a hand over his neck, he glamours the wound and blood away before Thor notices and advances on his brother, who’s staring at him wide-eyed.

“What did you see?” Loki questions.

“I don’t--.”

 _“Tell me,”_ Loki demands, leaning forward and looming over him.

Thor looks away, anxiety creasing his brow, but he cannot evade Loki’s question. He’s pushing him, but Loki needs to know what’s going on and Thor has to learn how to handle a little heat.

“I was-- I was big. And I was smashing a giant made of metal,” Thor says, eyes darting back to Loki’s face. “There were dozens of them, but my hammer crushed them like they were made of clay.”

He’s not lying to him, Loki is certain of that, but he’s holding something back. Loki stares at him expectantly and Thor looks away again and says, “My teammates were there helping me, and...” Thor closes his eyes and shivers.

“And what?” Loki prompts.

“A woman was watching me,” Thor whispers.

“A woman?”

Thor nods. “She has dark, bushy hair. I see her a lot.”

“What do you mean you _see her a lot?”_ Loki says, his voice rising. “Has she been here? Or at school?”

“No,” Thor says. “In my dreams. I see her watching me in my dreams.”

 _Not a creature-- a woman,_ Loki thinks and his eyes narrow. _A sorceress._

After he’s calmed Thor, staying with him until he falls sleep, Loki goes to the bathroom to examine his neck. He strips away the glamour and sees a nasty set of claw marks across his throat. It only takes a moment to heal the wound and purge the blood from his shirt, but the phantom pain lingers. It burns him, thrumming in time with his heartbeat.

To be able to physically wound an adversary through a medium and have the effect linger-- This is magic far beyond what he knows.

He’s enthralled and at the same time, afraid.

 

 

 

******

 

 

Loki tries to enjoy the next couple of days with Thor, taking him to the beach after school, letting him play in the sand until dusk and indulging his appetite for pop tarts and pizza and any other of Thor’s whims.

Loki is _not_ stalling for time, he tells himself. He’s certainly not crippled by the trepidation of where the next steps will take him. _Over the precipice,_ he thinks. _The irreversible point of no return..._

Loki does not know how he got _here,_ how his pure hatred for Thor turned so quickly to love, how the monster became a man again. Without magic or force of will, this little boy has changed him somehow, and Loki thinks that perhaps he’s already gone too far down this road, for the path behind him is as unclear as the one laid out before him.

One morning before Loki has risen, Thor climbs up onto Loki’s bed, jumping and laughing before tackling him with a roar. Thor sits on his chest, pinning him against the mattress with his slight weight and raises a pillow high above his head. He’s wearing a “helmet” made out of folded newspaper that he made in school with white paper wings glued to the side, an imitation of his own helm that was forged by the dwarves of Nidarvellir centuries ago.

“I have captured you, fearsome Jotun!” Thor says, his voice stern.

“Oh, mercy, great warrior, mercy,” Loki replies, feigning apprehension.

“Never!” Thor shrieks, smashing him in the face with the pillow. “Thor the conqueror has defeated the formidable Jotun warrior!” Thor says, tossing his “weapon” aside. “They will sing songs of this day for a thousand years!”

He giggles with a triumphant grin, looking down at Loki, complete joy playing across his features.

 _I’m not stalling,_ Loki insists as he reaches up and pulls Thor close, pressing a kiss into his cheek while the boy laughs and squirms in his arms.

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Evening falls silently, the night bringing a pall of stillness to the cottage. It’s far too quiet for Loki’s liking, and instinct makes him seek out his little five year old charge, wondering what task has absorbed him so that he remains silent.

Thor sits on the couch, his gaze half-lidded and blank. The golden shine that perpetually halos Thor has turned gray. He looks ill. It’s happening now-- one of those lethargic moments that pass quickly enough that Loki hopes he’s simply imagining their occurrences.

Loki goes to the couch, his eyes never leaving Thor. Kneeling slowly, Loki watches his brother, who is oblivious of his presence. Loki is very, _very_ concerned.

“Thor?” Loki says, keeping his voice soft.

Thor’s eyes flit from a far off place to him, and he starts anyway, obviously unawares until this moment. Resting his hand at the base of Thor’s neck, Loki draws in a quick breath, alarmed by the heated temperature of his skin. Immediately, he seeks out the binding that ties Thor to a child’s shape, and it ripples beneath his touch, volatile and dark.

“Dearheart, are you well?” Loki asks. As he speaks the fluctuations stop, the color returns to Thor's pallor and the burn beneath his fingertips disappears. Loki blinks as if to clear his vision.

“Yeah,” Thor says and seems puzzled that he would ask such a question.

This was not a trick of the light. Thor had been ashen a moment ago. Loki did not imagine this.

“You would tell me if something ails you?” Loki says.

“Yeah,” Thor repeats. The child is oblivious and it’s a small comfort that he feels no pain as the binding fluctuates.

 _No more,_ Loki thinks. _I can delay no more._

Thor knows Loki is worried and he smiles, having figured out that now is the exact right time to ask for something Loki would normally refuse.

“Draw with me,” Thor says. “Please?” he adds, making his blue eyes widen with excitement in a way that’s adorable and damn near impossible to refuse.

Loki releases a short, amused breath and thinks, _this little imp knows me too well._

“All right, you little manipulator,” Loki says. “Get your crayons.”

Loki is not much of an artist, his skill is serviceable, enough to draw diagrams and maps, but Thor doesn't seem to mind. Thor wants them both to draw on the same sheet of paper, a collaborative effort and he spreads the sheet out on the coffee table pushing his box of crayons between them.

"For mother," he says. Thor has drawn dozens of pictures for his mother. He’s also given Loki quite a few, too. Loki always thought it was foolish to keep tokens, but now that he is the recipient of several drawings, he finds he collects them quite proudly.

Thor draws their Wematin backyard, with trees and grass that leads to a sandy beach. Loki adds some squirrels on the tree while Thor handles the rest.

"You do like to draw, don't you, Thor?" Loki asks.

Thor nods and says, "Yes, it's my favorite."

"Really?" Loki prompts. He doesn't remember Thor ever expressing interest in artistic pursuits when they were growing up. "Why do you enjoy it so much?"

“Scribbling is fun,” Thor says as he races the crayon back and forth across the page. “And crayons smell nice, too,” he pauses, shrugging a little. “And sometimes you just have to.”

Now Loki always asks what Thor has drawn, and when he scribbles out his troubled dreams, he makes Thor tell him everything he sees.

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Loki makes a morning trip to Athens when Thor heads off to school. The magic he’s hunting traces back to ancient times and he knows that some the strongest magic the earth possessed happened in Greece thousands of years ago. Now that he knows he’s looking for a woman, he starts with places where earth sorceresses were once revered.

If he doesn’t find what he’s looking for here, he will venture south to Egypt and then possibly east to China, other places rich with terran magical history. But Loki doesn’t think he’ll have to. He knows that he’s on the right track the minute his feet touch Grecian soil. It _feels_ right.

The city is densely populated, a wild looking mix of ancient and modern fused together. He wanders the Acropolis of Athens with the rest of the tourists, though he doubts they see what he sees. Like the skeleton of a once mighty beast picked dry, the Parthenon reminds him of Asgard in its pomp and grandeur, and Loki speculates that this is what Asgard will look like centuries after its fall, a relic to imperiousness and folly.

Loki doesn’t have much time, but he lets his instincts guide him, following the pull of seidr. There’s magic in the earth here, like a fading scar, barely noticeable save for those who know what to look for. It reminds Loki of _her_ , of that witch who’s terrorizing his brother. It’s very old indeed, but a place where great magic has been spilled can never be truly divested of it.

He walks the terrain without specific purpose, gathering a sense of the magic originating from this region. Though the call is old, there’s more of a presence of sorcery here than he sensed in all of New York. That it still saturates the land thousands of years later is a testament to how truly powerful these ancient earth sorcerers must have been.

 _The earth here is still saturated with seidr,_ Loki thinks suddenly, _because this sorcery came from the earth._

Loki’s seidr begins from a place within himself, and he uses his inherent magic to tap into magicks found in the universe, but this sorceress’s power comes from the earth itself. She would be powerless on Asgard, but here, on Midgard, her potential strength knows no bounds. Her magic will last her until the planet itself dies. If she is clever, she could live as long as the Earth does.

A shiver runs through him as Loki thinks about what might have happened to Thor had he chosen to take him off world to deposit on Odin’s doorstep. If Thor had exited the scope of Midgard’s atmosphere, the magic binding him would have been torn from him like the spine ripped from a fillet of fish. The abrupt withdrawal of such binding seidr surely would have killed him.

To fully understand what the sorceress has done to Thor, Loki needs to try it for himself, needs to bind a living thing using magic culled from the earth. This planet hums with vitality, but Loki never thought to tap into it before, to use that moving spirit to enhance his own seidr. Though he’s not entirely sure what he’s doing, Loki reasons that it _can’t_ be very different from his own sorcery, as he’s been able to follow and pick up the trail all over this realm.

He closes his eyes and when he opens them again, he is standing in front of the oak tree in the backyard of their Wematin home. With the whole of it’s life path already mapped out, Loki knows how much of it must be bound to transform it to a youngling once more.

Luckily for him, the tree is in symbiosis with the earth and the magic of this realm is already weaved inside. Loki merely has to touch it to draw from it and when he does he is jolted as if by a wayward bolt from his brother’s Mjolnir.

Wielding this power is like harnessing a hurricane between his hands and using it to tear individual petals from a flower. The concentration and stamina involved in this sorcery is profound, but Loki will not back down from this challenge.

Tugging at the threads, Loki carefully loosens the first stitch. It’s difficult work, the tree does not want to come undone and it trembles once again under his hands in obvious distress. This cannot be avoided. One cannot be gentle when taking apart a living thing.

 _It would be easy,_ Loki thinks, _to kill this tree._ And just as easy to kill Thor, if Loki does not master this. Loki does not want to terminate this tall oak-- he wants to retrogress it to its younger incarnation, just as Thor was transformed to his younger self.

Loki keeps himself steady, and puts Thor out of his mind, not wanting to draw parallels between the quivering life beneath his hands and his brother under the sorceress’s ministrations.

The storm of earth-power whirls out of control and he loses his grasp, coming down hard, crashing head first into the bedrock of physical existence.

It takes Loki a moment to realize his eyes are open as the world dances before him. His head feels thick, his thoughts smothered in tar, and he grips the tree trunk for support.

A gasp escapes his lips when when he encompass his hands around a now fledgling tree.

 _By the Norns, I did it,_ he thinks. Loki has unspooled all but ten years of the tree’s lifespan. Not as young as he was hoping for, but not bad for a first try either.

A bubble of laughter escapes Loki as the ground rushes up to meet him and he knows no more.

 

 

 

 

******

 

 

There’s a bee buzzing around his ear. He turns his head from the sound, irritated. The droning gets louder, the pitch becoming clearer and then the buzzing suddenly becomes intelligible.

“Loki, can you hear me?” a voice screeches in his ear. “You have to wake up!”

 _That’s Thor,_ Loki thinks. _He sounds upset._ Loki’s thoughts are dripping slow, like sap seeping from a wounded tree.

There are fingers on his cheeks, hands clutching his face. Loki blinks at the small figure hunched over him, the sun-bright sky blinding his gaze.

“Thor?” Loki asks. As his vision sharpens, he sees the very worried visage of his brother coming into focus.

“Loki!” Thor shouts. “Are you hurt?”

“What? No,” Loki says. He sits up slowly and the world tilts before him. Thor grips him by the shoulder to steady him, even though Loki would surely take the five year old down with him if he keeled over.

“What happened?” Thor asks. “I came home and you-- you weren’t _anywhere._ Then I saw you outside on the grass. I-- I couldn’t wake you, Loki.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Loki says. “I just took a little nap. I must have been more tired than I thought.”

Thor studies him, his eyes that damning shade of troubled blue. He knows Loki is not telling him the truth. When did Loki become bad at lying to Thor?

“You’re not well,” Thor says, worried.

“There will be none of that, Thor. Do not be concerned for me,” Loki says. “I only require rest, I promise you.”

Stronger than he looks, Thor pulls Loki up by the hand and helps him back into the cottage. Leading him to the couch, Thor makes Loki sit. He drags the comforter from his bed and wraps it around Loki with the utmost care.

Loki tries to tell Thor that it’s not necessary, but he’s too tired to argue with the tenacious five year old. Thor will have none of it and settles next to him, fitting Loki’s hand between his two little ones, and talks softly about his day at school.

His eyes drift shut and Loki falls asleep listening to his brother’s rambling, a smile playing on his lips.

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Waking with a start, Loki blinks, bleary-eyed, slowly coming to his senses. He finds himself on the couch, wrapped in Thor’s comforter. Pale light filters in from behind the drawn curtains disclosing that it’s morning.

“You’re awake,” Thor says.

Loki stares down at his feet and sees Thor looking up at him from the floor with a smile. The boy is sitting in front of the television, chewing on a pop tart. His warm weight leans against Loki’s legs and Thor seems to have looked up mid-bite when Loki stirred.

“You slept a long time, Loki,” he says, climbing up onto the couch and cozies next to him.

“What time is it?” Loki asks, feeling entirely unawares.

Thor shrugs and says, “Sesame Street is on.”

“Sesame Street?” Loki asks absently. Though he feels much more like himself than he did yesterday, Loki is still quite tired and his mind is sluggish, lagging behind Thor’s words.

“Yeah, my friends at school watch it,” Thor says. “They like Elmo, but I like Grover the best.”

“Grover?” Loki asks. Thor is assimilating far too well into Midgardian culture for Loki has no idea what in all the realms he is talking about.

“Yeah, he’s a blue monster that lives on Sesame Street,” Thor clarifies.

His mind suddenly sharpens on the words _blue monster_ and Loki glances down at Thor and says, “You... you like the blue monster the best?”

Thor nods his head and explains. “He’s silly and makes a mess of things,” Thor says, “but he tries really hard. He doesn’t understand things like how I don’t understand. We learn together.”

“Oh, I see,” Loki says. Suddenly overcome by a rush of affection, he throws his arm around Thor, dragging him close and kisses the top of his head. Thor, never needing an excuse to show affection, hugs him back gladly.

 _He likes the blue monster best,_ Loki thinks. _If only he knew..._

“It’s morning--,” Loki says suddenly. “Your dreams-- I was asleep-- I wasn’t there for you. I’m sorry, Thor, I--.”

“It’s okay,” Thor interrupts. “I stayed with you. It wasn’t that bad this time.” There’s a proud tone in his voice.

“You’re going to be very late for school,” Loki says, but makes no move to rise from the couch. “I see you are eating now, but would you like something more substantial?”

“Pancakes,” Thor says instantly. “Pancakes! Can we make pancakes?”

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

Emboldened by his success with de-aging the tree, Loki wants to chart Thor’s life threads and examine the binding with this new insight. A man will pose even more of a challenge than a tree, but it is the next step in mastering this form of sorcery.

Admittedly, Loki is exhausted from his efforts. No matter how much he sleeps, he never wakes renewed. Hiding this from Thor, who has been watching him with eyes keen like a predator, Loki dozes while the boy is at school, biding his time for several days until he starts to feel more like himself again.

But wielding this earth magic with prowess is all Loki can think about. It's new and exciting and a challenge worthy of him. How powerful he would be if he could access the heart of this planet to enhance his own natural abilities.

 _None could stop me,_ Loki thinks. He could do whatever he wanted-- he could truly rule this realm if he saw fit to.

Not that he has any desire to rule this world of underlings, but who knows how he will feel a century from now, and how powerful would he be after all that time? As powerful as that dark haired sorceress?

 _More powerful than she,_ Loki thinks, _for I will have this seidr and my own to employ._

Power such as this could keep Thor with him forever. As soon as he thinks this, Loki pushes this thought aside. The future is difficult for Loki to consider and once again his heart aches for the subsequent decision he must make-- keeping his child or reverting him back to a man.

Not wanting to make this choice, Loki instead focuses solely on studying earth magic and beating the sorceress at her own game. He takes several days simply feeling for the bio-rhythms of different lifeforms, from the selfish seagulls squawking on the beach to the very bewildered squirrels looking for their old oak tree.

“Thor, I’d like to try something with you,” Loki says one evening after dinner when he is confident in his ability. “I think I may have figured out how you were made little, but I need to test something.”

“Okay,” Thor says, looking up at him with trusting eyes. “Will I be big again?” he asks.

“I don’t think so,” Loki says. “I simply want to take a look at the magic binding you.” It’s not untrue. He does want to check it. But he also wants to see how Thor’s life threads spiral. What do they look like now that he’s been made little? Where are the missing years hidden? Can he even untangle them from the sorceress’s dark web?

He curves his hand around Thor’s neck and closes his eyes, searching for the threads of magic that are wound deep inside his brother. He does not like the feel of it-- the magic undulates wildy under his touch.

The first thread he finds is black and feels sharp, biting him has he grasps it. Loki does not let go, following the strand deeper.

Vaguely he hears Thor’s voice say, _“It hurts,”_ but Loki is deeply entranced and cannot respond to him and track the thread at the same time. He has to find the end of the strand, only then can he begin to unweave it.

He catches a streak of black and feels a malevolent gaze on him-- the sorceress knows he’s meddling about, but Loki does not stop. The next tendril he disturbs is hot like a fire iron, meeting his touch with searing pain, but he will not let go. Loki _must_ find out where this goes.

_Nearly there--_

Electricity scorches through him and he’s startled back to reality. Thrown backwards, he smashes through a kitchen chair and lands in a heap on the floor.

Hot currents of white light crackle between Thor’s hands. Thor has shocked him with a bolt of lightning. Momentarily stunned, Loki lays still where he landed.

Energy charges sputter around Thor and he sways on his feet. He puts a hand to his temple and cants his head towards Loki.

“Brother?” he asks and his voice is strange, still young but with echos of his older self. “What... what is this?”

And then Thor is _falling--_

Loki scrambles forward to catch him. Residual electricity shocks him as he makes contact with Thor's body, but Loki doesn’t let go.

Heaving Thor up into his arms, Loki feels the burn of feverish skin against his own and cold fear streaks through him.

Thor will not wake and Loki dares not use any more magic to tamper with his consciousness. Putting Thor to bed, Loki sits vigil, racked with guilt.

He shouldn’t have meddled with this magic. He’d known the sorcery that bound Thor was greater than his own seidr, yet his arrogance and reluctance to fully face the situation blinded Loki to the consequences. He had not thought this through-- of how this might negatively affect Thor. He’d only thought of mastering a new kind of magic, of outplaying the sorceress.

Pressing his hand against Thor’s forehead, he infuses the feverish skin with his cooling touch. Loki takes Thor’s little hand between his two and waits, trying to use the time to replay the incident and glean facts from it, but he’s _dizzyingly_ compromised and can only theorize on the terrible damage he’s just done to Thor.

 

 

 

 

*****

 

 

It’s many hours later when Thor sighs and stirs in his sleep. The child had lain so still that Loki watched his chest intently, looking for the telltale rise and fall of breath just to make sure he lived.

“Thor?” Loki asks, smoothing back the blond locks plastered to his forehead. “Dearheart, wake up.”

Thor’s brow furrows, but then his eyes flutter open. He’s tired, but his eyes are clear and unfettered of suffering.

“Loki?” he says, his voice scratchy.

An involuntary noise of relief escapes him and Loki rushes forward, pressing a kiss to Thor’s forehead. “Thank, Valhalla,” Loki whispers against his brow. “Oh, my little one, you scared me so,” he says pulling back a little to look down on him. “Are you well, Thor? Truly?”

Thor smiles faintly, nodding, and says, “May I have some water?”

Loki instantly conjures a glass and helps the glass to his lips. After he’s drank his fill, Thor asks, “What happened Loki?”

“I tampered with the magic that binds you,” Loki explains, “I did not intend to hurt you, but I did. I regret that very much.”

Thor sits up suddenly, his eyes becoming wide with horror. “I shocked you!” he says. “With lightning!”

“I pushed you and you pushed back,” Loki clarifies.

“I didn’t mean to,” Thor says. “I didn’t--.”

“I know, my dear,” Loki soothes. “It was a defense mechanism. You are too young to have much control over it. Your storm powers didn’t manifest until you were much older,” he explains.

“Brother, I have wielded lightning for years,” Thor says, then frowns. “No, _he_ can-- other me, big Thor.” His brow creases in confusion. “It wasn’t me, was it? It was him. He was there for a second.”

Loki draws Thor to him, enveloping the child fully within his arms, hugging him tightly against his chest. “We’ll work it out, dearheart,” Loki says. His voice is calm, but from this position Thor cannot see the look of alarm widening his eyes.

Loki has damaged some of the binding magic, let something loose inside of Thor, and Loki fears he’s done his sweet little boy more harm than good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was so much I wanted to tell you guys in this chapter! This is the longest chapter yet-- over 8,000 words!
> 
> I wanted to let you all know that I'm on twitter now as [griseldajaane](https://twitter.com/griseldajaane) (please note the double "aa"). It's a good place to find out what's going on with my fandom offerings, both art and fiction. 
> 
> I would love to follow more fandom people and of course, please follow me back!
> 
> Please check out my [tumblr](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/) for my artwork and my [LJ](http://griseldajane.livejournal.com/), for fandom discussion. 
> 
> Thanks so much for all of your support-- I'll see you next chapter :)


	4. Part Four: Moments of Virture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Life is multi-faceted. Neither black nor white, but with many shades in between. Heroes can do bad things. Monsters can have moments of virtue.”

**GODCHILD**  
\-- PART FOUR --

 

The kettle on the stove shrills, a billow of steam rising up from its spout, and Loki pops up, his chair scraping a line of protest against the tile as he stands, moving to turn off the burner.

“Thor, come get your tea,” Loki says as he fills a mug with hot water. The vapors swirl up pleasantly, wafting the gentle aroma around his face.

They’ve just walked home from the school, and though it is April, the winter chill still clings to the air. By the time Thor walked through the front door, his nose was red and running from the cold. 

If Loki puts enough honey in it, Thor will drink his bitter earl grey tea without complaining, which will do much to warm the child up.

“Thor?” Loki calls again. He glances over to the couch where Thor had situated after peeling off his layers of outerwear and sees the five year old leaning back against the cushions, sound asleep.

Sighing softly as he goes to the couch, Loki drapes a blanket over him, leaving the boy to his nap.

In the past few weeks, Thor has slept more and more. Loki finds him slumped over his drawings, facedown at the dinner table and asleep on the floor, his toy truck still in hand. It would be amusing if this fatigue didn't cause alarm to rise in Loki's throat.

Bad dreams plague Thor several times a day now and Loki is not always there to comfort him. There’s still some pride in him, and Thor wants to be brave and not run to Loki at every nightmare, even though Loki assures him these visions are beyond his control and that it’s natural for him to be scared. 

_It’s my fault,_ Loki thinks. Ever since tampering with the binding that constrains Thor to his child shape, his tortured dreams have increased threefold.

But there’s little he can do about it. Loki has learned quite a bit about the earth magic that binds Thor, but since Thor collapsed, he’s been unwilling to try anything more with the boy, for the fear of harming him outweighs the likelihood of allaying his condition. 

How precarious it all is. The most he’s dared to do is soothe the dark threads when they undulate wildly and chase off Thor’s “gray” spells. 

This, Loki _hates,_ biding his time for something unknown while Thor withers a little more each day. Doing nothing is not a solution. He just hasn’t quite worked out what the perfect panacea for both of them will be.

*****

It's after four o'clock in the morning when some kind of newfound parental sense wakes Loki abruptly from a dreamless sleep. He bolts upright, half expecting an attack, but the house is still, nothing betrays any movement save the faint sound of wind coursing over the rooftop.

His thoughts flit immediately to Thor and before he's really awake, Loki is out of bed and at the youngster's open door.

Thor’s bed is empty.

Even before he steps into the room, Loki knows Thor is not there, but he looks anyway, his mind addled with sleep and anxiety. As Loki turns to scour other rooms of the cottage, his panic is waylaid by a faint stream of light spilling across the floor, coming from underneath the closed door of the bathroom.

When Loki approaches the door, he hears Thor sobbing, shuddering breaths and sniffling, tiny gasps and broken, unintelligible pleas.

“Thor,” he calls softly, knocking on the door. “Are you alright?” He twists the handle and it stays rigid in his grasp, an immovable object.

Thor has locked himself inside.

Loki is too stunned at first to do anything more than try the handle again, as if the first time was somehow a mistake.

“Open this door right now,” he demands.

Loki could easily bypass the lock and force open the door himself, but displaying his formidable power is hardly the point. For some reason, Thor needs to hide behind a locked door and Loki wants to know why.

_To feel safe?_ Loki wonders. _He’s never needed a locked door before..._

Forcing the door would only upset Thor further. Waiting out his irritation until he has a calmer mind, Loki says, “Dearheart, please open the door. I need to see that you are all right.” 

It takes a moment. Loki hears Thor shuffling around and finally he sees Thor’s shadow pass across the bar of light streaming over the threshold, and then a _click_ as the lock turns and the door opens a hand’s width. 

Thor peers at him from behind the door, his face red and puffy from crying. He sniffles and looks up at Loki with fearful eyes. 

“Thor, why did you lock yourself in the bathroom?”

Thor stares at him a moment and whispers, “I was afraid.”

“Well, there’s no need to lock yourself away, Dearheart,” Loki says. “I will always be here to protect you.”

Thor's eyes remain frightened. He doesn’t believe him. 

“There are very few things in this realm that could challenge me,” Loki says. “I assure you that any foes from your dreams that did not perish at Mjolnir’s might will not get past me.”

Something has changed, but Loki doesn't know what. He pushes the door open all the way and crouches at Thor’s feet. 

“What did you see, my little one?” Loki asks. "What dreams plague you so?"

Thor looks down at him and whispers, “A Monster. I dreamed about a monster. And a great war.”

_He’s not telling the truth,_ Loki thinks. _Not the whole truth._

Before Loki can press him further, Thor says, “I’m tired. I want to try to sleep.”

“Do you want to sleep in with me tonight?” Loki asks.

“No!” Thor answers quickly. He wipes his face on his pajama sleeve and says, “No, I just want to go to bed.”

A sense of dread claws around Loki’s heart as Thor pushes past him and returns to his bedroom, closing the door behind him with a dull _thunk._

*****

The morning is going badly. Thor is more difficult to rouse for school than usual, not that Loki is surprised after the sleepless night. Thor is moody and shrugs out of Loki’s grasp several times. He’s quiet in a sullen way and Loki catches Thor glaring at him with an outright contemptuous look several times.

“What _is_ the matter, Thor?” Loki snaps irritably when he can no longer tolerate Thor’s ill-tempered behavior.

The boy cowers backward a step, wide-eyed gaze fixed on him like a deer eying a hungry wolf, poised to dash off at a moment’s notice. 

For the first time _ever_ , Loki gets the sense that Thor is afraid of him, and his anger swiftly evaporates in the face of Thor’s fear.

“Dearheart, what is it?” Loki asks softly, taking a small step towards Thor, and Thor _bolts,_ grabbing his backpack off the chair and makes a mad dash for the door.

“Thor!” Loki calls after him.

“I’ll miss the bus,” Thor shouts without looking back, dashing away as the storm door slams shut behind him.

For several minutes afterward, Loki simply stands there, frowning. What had just happened? The terror in Thor’s eyes-- Loki had gleefully inspired that same look on the faces of men and gods alike-- but provoking it on little Thor’s face stabs him like a knife through his heart.

Loki searches his memory for something that he might have done to frighten the boy, but can think of no action of his that might have been misinterpreted to induce fear. 

Restlessness settles around him like iron fetters and he goes through the rest of the day encumbered with a burden of unease and dread. 

Loki decides to visit Thor at school, planning to meet him before he can get on the bus at the end of the day. The walk home should provide him the opportunity he needs to coax the truth from Thor.

When he arrives at the Wematin Elementary School at two o’clock, he does not see Thor in the line with the other children on his bus route. Real worry is about to seize him when a woman he recognizes as Thor’s teacher approaches him.

“You got here quickly, Mr. Odinson,” she says. “I think they just left you a message.”

“What message?” he asks.

“You’re not here about the fight?”

“No,” he replies slowly. “I came to walk the boy home. Thor was in a fight?”

The teacher nods and says, “Let me get someone to cover this line and I’ll bring you to him.”

In this realm, fighting is neither venerated nor considered acceptable outside of the threat of real physical danger. Thor’s been enrolled in school for four months now, ample time to learn the customs, and should definitely know better than this.

Loki follows the teacher to the office and sees Thor sitting on a chair next to the secretary’s desk. He looks miserable. When Thor notices him, he sinks further into his seat, head bowed.

“Thor was involved in a fight with another student today,” the teacher says, looking down at him. “He sent the other boy to the nurse with a bloody nose.”

Now _that_ sounded more like the Thor he remembered from their youth. Though, Loki had to admit that five years old was a bit young for Thor’s temper to start emerging. He didn’t remember it until he’d reached double digits at least. 

“Are you all right, Thor?” he asks. 

Thor doesn’t look up, but he nods obediently.

“What happened?” Loki asks.

Thor shrugs and still won’t look at him. 

Something pulls tight in Loki’s chest. This is not how it’s supposed to be. He’s angry and frustrated with his brother, but more than anything he just wants to destroy whatever is causing Thor to act out.

He crouches in front of Thor, canting his head to peer up into his face.

“You know I need a real answer, brother,” he says. “Tell me what happened.”

Thor’s watery blue eyes flit to his, his mouth trembling with misery. “It was my turn,” Thor says. “He took the ball when it was mine. He pushed me away. Said kids with funny names and no parents didn’t get a turn.”

“So you hit him,” Loki says and Thor looks down again, shoulders stooped in shame.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” he whispers. “He’s bigger than me.”

“He shouldn’t have said those things to you,” Loki says. “But you shouldn’t have hit him. You can’t solve every problem with your fists, Thor.”

“He insulted our family,” Thor says, suddenly angry. “What _should_ I have done?”

The truth is that Loki probably would have slugged the kid, too. Actually, Loki would have set a curse on him that made his tongue swell until he’d lost his powers of speech. But he has enough sense of Midgardian propriety to know that can’t say _that_ in front of the teacher. 

“You could have at least tried reason first before you went straight to fisticuffs,” Loki replies. “Was the result of your actions satisfactory?”

“No,” Thor says sullenly. 

Loki stands and says to the teacher, “The boy is repentant. I will see that he is reprimanded accordingly. May we go?”

“Yes, but we really do have strict rules against fighting,” she says. “If it happens again, he’ll be suspended.”

“Come along, Thor,” Loki says. “Let us go.” 

For a moment, Loki thinks the boy is not going to follow. Rooted to his seat, Thor’s eyes are fearful and Loki wonders if he hadn’t gone to collect him, would Thor have boarded the bus to come home at all?

When Thor knows he can’t delay any further without implying a challenge, he slinks to his feet and trudges after him.

The walk home will provide them opportunity to talk and Loki hopes it will go more smoothly than their exchange in the morning, but it does not. Thor will not take his hand and insists on staying an arm’s-length away from him. 

“Enough of this,” Loki says when they are nearly halfway to the cottage. He wheels around, stepping into Thor’s way. “You will tell me what is bothering you now, Thor.” 

This time of day, the traffic on the main road is winding up, and cars whirl past, punctuating the silence between them.

“I saw you,” Thor says finally. “In my dreams-- in big Thor’s memories. You led an army of creatures.”

Loki goes very still.

“You hurt people,” Thor accuses. “You _killed_ people. You’re-- _you’re a bad man.”_

Thor has remembered his invasion on New York with the Chitauri army, which was one of his most widespread acts of violence to date. Loki has never before felt shame for his nefarious actions, but he comes close now. The urge to lie is strong, but it is as if child Thor possesses some kind of power over him that forces him to tell the truth.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, I have done bad things.”

Thor recoils and shakes his head as if he’d hoped that just this once his nightmares were only that and not terrible memories. _“No,”_ he cries in denial. “But you’re-- how can you--.”

“Things are not so simple as you think, Thor,” Loki says. “Life is multi-faceted. Neither black nor white, but with many shades in between. Heroes can do bad things. Monsters can have moments of virtue.”

But Thor is too young to make sense of the complexities of the world. All he understands is that everything he saw in his vision is true-- that Loki, his great protector and only tie to his family, is really a villain.

_“Why?”_ Thor asks, anguished. 

How can Loki ever explain his past actions to this child? The story is too complex and potentially damaging to Thor, challenging what he knows about his family, heritage and his own identity. In another time, Loki would have relished the opportunity to hurt him this way, but he cannot bring himself to do it now.

Every reason sounds like an excuse and so he gives none.

“It’s in my nature,” Loki says. “Your brother is a monster, Thor. But this monster cares for you more dearly than anyone in all of the realms. You must believe me.” 

Thor shakes his head and backs away from him. “You _hate_ me,” Thor says. “You tried to _kill_ me. You want me dead!”

“No, Thor, _never,_ ” Loki implores. “By the nine, I _never_ want to see you dead. I--.”

Thor is not stronger than Loki, but he is now faster. The boy darts off before Loki finishes his thought and runs into the street to get away from him.

Around the vastness of his upset, no thought is given to the potential dangers at hand, and Thor does not see the SUV cruising down the two lane road. Thor may be a God but he’s not fully grown yet-- this Thor has never tasted one of Idunn’s apples-- and there is a very real probability that this large Midgardian vehicle will crush his tiny frame into a gruesome smudge against the pavement.

_“Thor!”_ Loki screams.

He doesn’t even think about it. In an instant, Loki disappears and materializes into Thor’s path in front of the speeding car. Thor smacks into him at full tilt and Loki grips him tightly. Once his arms are around him, the breath of the vehicle warm against his side, Loki vanishes with Thor, transporting them directly into the kitchen of their cottage.

Impossibly loud, Loki’s heart thunders in his chest, terror gripping him in a way he’s seldom felt before. Mere seconds had separated his sweet little boy from obliteration. 

_Dead,_ Loki thinks, _he could be dead this very minute._

Still in his iron grip, Thor struggles against his hold, trying desperately to break free. 

“Let me go!” Thor shouts, squirming and kicking his legs. 

A rage falls over him and Loki slaps Thor hard across the face, snarling, “You could have been _killed!”_ He shakes him sternly by the shoulders and yells, “Do not _ever_ run from me again.”

When Thor looks up at him, his small hand pressing against the red mark on his cheek, Loki has never felt more like a villain. Thor’s wide blue eyes crumple with hurt and betrayal and terror, expressions Loki had hoped never to place in child Thor’s eyes. The look is enough to loosen his grip and Thor presses his advantage, running from the kitchen to the refuge of his room. 

*****

His heart hurts, an ache so deep Loki thinks that maybe it’s about to burst and relieve him from the pain of sentiment for all time. He’s felt this before, a long time ago when he was still Odin’s son. Curious, that this ache is brought about by the same person now as it was then.

_He’s just a foolish little boy,_ Loki thinks. _He_ needed _to be disciplined. I cannot have my child running heedless into danger whenever the mood strikes him._

Loki should _not_ be so affected by the outbursts of a five year old.

But this child is Thor and Thor has always compromised his emotional state. The need for his brother’s esteem started the moment Loki laid eyes on him, when he himself was a babe wrapped in Frigga’s arms, lost from the onset with no hope of recovery.

_The fool reacted without thinking-- when is Thor ever going to learn to think before he acts?_ Loki wonders. 

A tide of anger washes over him and he stews in it for a moment before the feeling recedes with the thought that he’s not really angry with Thor, more at himself, at the helplessness he felt when he saw his brother would be hit by that vehicle.

He was angry for feeling fear, angry for realizing how world-shattering Thor's death would actually be for him, angry for being vulnerable after years of hardening himself, angry that Thor put him in a situation to be faced with such honest emotion.

In truth, the boy had every right to be upset. Finding out your only caregiver is a horrific monster is a great blow to bear. It’s too much to expect a five year old to be rational when his whole world has been compromised.

_Striking the boy was a mistake,_ Loki thinks. Hadn’t Loki just chastised Thor for hitting someone? And here he is not an hour later using the same methods to vent his anger. 

What a matched pair they truly are.

Rain batters against the house, though there had not been a cloud in the sky earlier. It’s Thor’s doing. Lightning is not the only thing Loki unleashed when he tampered with the magic binding Thor. The boy probably isn’t even aware he’s doing it, but Loki knows, understanding how grievously upset he is.

Things cannot stay this way-- with the pieces of fractured trust laying between them.

So Loki tries. He is unused to revealing his hand, laying his cards down on the table without knowing what his opponent holds. But the alternative of losing Thor’s regard is too much for him to withstand.

And how he riles and curses himself for regressing into his old ways, when a single kind word from Thor was all he desired in the world, would lift his heart and fulfill him as he basked in his brother’s affection.

But even in this, the heat does not last long. He’s too far gone, fallen too far into little Thor’s clutches to go back to his angry, lonesome ways. 

He can mend this, if he tries and he _must_ try.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” Loki says, standing in the doorway of Thor’s room. Thor is curled on his bed, his back to the door.

“Sentiment got the better of me,” Loki explains. “You must understand there was a mere heartbeat between you and an awful, violent end.”

Loki pauses, gathering his words carefully. _The truth,_ he reminds himself. _He cannot be won over by half-lies meant to salve your pride._

“You-- you truly _scared_ me, Thor. The thought of you being harmed or killed terrifies me more than _anything_ in all of Yggdrasil's branches and the dark places between,” he admits. “My striking you was an impulsive reaction to the terror of almost having lost you and your own obliviousness to the danger you'd put yourself in.”

Thor turns enough to glare at him, unmoved, his face a scowl of hatred. _Liar,_ his eyes say. _Liar Loki, silvertonged God of Lies._

A coil of anguish twists inside him. Thor truly has lost faith in him.

“I know you are angry with me and probably frightened of me, too,” Loki says. “But I remember the vow I made unto you, Thor. I would not break that promise for all the world. Since I found you in that alley, everything I have done has been to protect you-- _everything._ Judge me by these actions, not by the man you see in your nightmares.”

Thor continues to scowl and he obstinately rolls over putting his back to the door again, curling away from Loki. Clearly, the boy wants nothing to do with him. 

Though it rends a line of tension through him, Loki complies, leaving him to his solitude. No good has ever come from forcing Thor into anything. Like a cornered animal, Thor has always lashed out at being hemmed in.

Loki stays up late into the night, poring through his spell books, searching for magic that could help Thor’s condition, but his heart is not in it. When the clock strikes twelve, he gives up, closing the tome with a heavy hand. 

As he passes Thor’s room on his way to his own, Loki hears him sobbing. 

With a hand clenching around the doorknob, his knuckles turning white, Loki fights his instinct to go in and comfort him from the nightmares that plague his brother. 

His fingers loosen and his hand drops to his side. Loki’s presence will only distress Thor further.

*****

It’s Saturday morning and usually, Thor bounds into his room because it is the only day that he allows Thor to watch as much television as he wants and naturally he wants to watch cartoons with Loki.

But not this Saturday morning. Loki turns on the television anyway. He wanders into the kitchen and leans against the counter, head bowed as he listens to the happy sounds of the animated show filtering in.

Is it foolish to continue on as if nothing is wrong? But Loki takes a small comfort in routine and ritual. On some level that’s why sorcery appeals to him. During his most trying times, he’s been known to fall back upon repetitive actions to get him through.

He wonders if Thor takes comfort in these things too.

The next time Loki looks up, he sees Thor has emerged from his room and is sitting on the couch watching the show.

Loki reminds himself that he wanted to try to mend things with Thor and so he decides to cook breakfast for him. A part of him riles at having to kowtow to Thor once again, but he tells that part of himself to keep quiet, to consider what emotions little Thor must be feeling. What Thor needs is more important now than any discomfort of his. 

Loki makes pancakes, which he knows Thor loves, spreading raspberry jam across each top in lieu of maple syrup. He brings a plate over to the couch, sitting on the opposite end, and sets the plate down in the middle cushion between them.

Thor _must_ be hungry. He did not eat dinner last night, and he sees Thor eyeing the plate. Loki knows that he will not be forgiven over a plate of pancakes, but it certainly can’t hurt. 

Thor glances over at him and Loki pretends not to see, keeps his gaze forward on the television. Thor takes one of the pancakes and shoves it into his mouth. Once he’s taken one, he can’t help but go for a second and third. 

When he reaches for a fourth, Loki conjures a glass of milk and hands it out to him.

Thor looks at the glass as if it’s poisoned, but takes it anyway, his hunger and thirst overriding his suspicions.

“Thanks,” he says softly, sparing Loki a glance before returning his attention to the television.

Loki pretends to watch the show too, but he’s really watching Thor. The boy looks exhausted, slumped boneless against the couch cushions, but he’s absorbed completely in watching the show and the tension relaxes from his face at least for now.

For the rest of the day, they give each other a wide berth, neither ignoring nor seeking out the other.

*****

That evening, sleep does not come to him and so Loki lays in bed, staring at the ceiling. The shadows play tricks on his mind and he sees his demons lurking there, his failures, his horrors taunting him whenever he closes his eyes.

It’s nearing midnight when his mattress dips suddenly and he looks up sharply to see Thor climbing up onto the bed.

“Thor?” Loki asks. “Are you all right?”

Thor doesn’t say anything, but he crawls across the bed and settles next to him. His little hands reach for Loki’s arm and his grip is surprisingly strong.

“I don’t want to be mad at you, Loki,” Thor whispers.

"I don't want you to be mad at me either," Loki says.

“Loki,” Thor says, sidling up to him, his knees bumping into his arm as he crouches forward. His eyes are round and worried, his mouth pulled into a serious line. “You changed when I did, didn’t you?” Thor asks, earnestly, pleading with him for it to be so.

Loki frowns, not understanding. “What do you mean?”

“My dreams are from before I got little,” Thor says. “I was different then, and so were you. You changed, like me, except not on the outside. You changed here,” Thor says, flattening his little palm against Loki's chest over his heart. “So, you don't hate me anymore... right?"

_Oh, Thor,_ Loki thinks. _My little child, how perceptive you’ve become._

The truth is that he _had_ hated Thor-- as much as he ever loved his brother, he had hated him in equal measure. At his most unhinged moments, Loki had indeed tried to kill him. He can’t even tell Thor that he regrets his past actions because he doesn’t. He _needed_ those murderous moments of hatred then as much as he needs to love Thor now.

If he regrets anything, it’s because the consequences of those actions have now affected the one relationship he would like to preserve.

The change he felt in himself, Thor understands too.

"Yes, I changed,” Loki admits. “Whatever I may have felt in the past is inconsequential now," he says. "All that matters is happening right now between you and me. Truly, you are more dear to me than anyone I have known, Thor."

Thor smiles, the uncertainty fading from his face.

"You believe me, don't you?" Loki asks.

“Aye,” Thor replies.

Thor pulls back the covers enough to climb underneath, squirming until he's nestled in the protected space between Loki's arm and his chest, and cocoons them both with the comforter.

And just like that, Thor forgives him, wholly and completely. The soft hearted fool never could stay angry with him. Not even when he'd be wise to-- _especially_ then.

Loki’s never been more glad for his brother’s capacity to forgive than he is at this moment.

“Loki?” Thor asks when he’s just about to fall asleep.

“Mmm?” he prompts.

“When I am big can I still stay with you?”

“When you are grown up you won’t want to,” Loki replies.

Thor is quiet for a moment. “But if I did... would you let me?”

He smiles at youth’s ignorance but says, “Yes,” and his smile only grows when Thor burrows next to him, his small arms thrown around him in an embrace.

"Love you, Loki," Thor says in a sleepy breath.

Loki holds to him and when the child is asleep he whispers, "and I you, Thor."

*****

On Sunday morning, Loki wakes with Thor curled against his side, sleeping soundly, his mouth hanging open. He smiles fondly at his little charge, taking care not to wake him.

While he lays there with Thor breathing softly beside him, Loki daydreams about their future, if they were allowed to have one together.

It goes like this--

He will rent the cottage through May, until the school year is up and then they’ll find a new place-- a place where they can make a more permanent home, where Thor can go to school and make friends and grow up again. 

Loki will put all his plans on hold and will devote himself to Thor fully. He’ll raise his brother as if he were his own son and will love him that much more for being both his sibling and his child. Loki will teach Thor how to fight and how to wield magic.

Thor will learn diplomacy and statesmanship and when he is ready and has outgrown the sorcery that binds him, Thor will return to Asgard fit to wear the crown. 

And they will be happy, together, as it was always meant to be.

But Loki’s heart fills with sorrow for he knows that this will never be anything more than a fantasy. Loki squeezes his eyes shut against the desperate longing in his chest. 

Loki has something with Thor now that he has always been missing and Loki realizes he can have it completely if he _lets_ himself, even if only for a little while. Thor has always loved him, Loki cannot deny it. Even at his most arrogant and selfish, Thor still loved him.

But it’s only now that Loki can accept Thor’s love as being true and not offered with strings attached to some ulterior motive.

And Loki truly does love the boy with all his heart. Thor has become his brother again, but something else too-- Thor has become like his own child. 

Loki can't pinpoint when exactly it happened. Over days and weeks and months, it is not one major thing that turned the tide, but a collection of little moments, of small looks and gestures, of smiles and laughter and tears, of experiences shared between them that allowed love to grow. They are in this thing together and they truly only have each other.

With all that he is, Loki does not want to lose Thor, but just as he cannot change the unjust truth of his Jotun heritage no matter how he clings to his Aesir facade, Loki cannot change Thor's fate simply because he wishes to.

He _will_ lose Thor. It is simply a matter of time before he does.

Thor begins to stir beside him. With a yawn, the youngster stretches his arms, elbowing Loki in the side as he does. He sits up, his hair sticking up every which way. He rubs his eyes and says around another yawn, “I’m hungry.”

“Good morning to you, too, brother,” Loki chuckles. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

Thor slides off the bed, but then something attracts his attention and he ambles over to the window.

“Loki!” Thor shouts. "Brother, come see!"

Thor ducks beneath the drawn shade and plasters himself against the window pane. “It’s snowing!” The boy throws back the curtain and cuts the room with a swatch of light.

The sky is overcast, but it’s bright, light reflecting up from the blanket of snow covering the ground. The snow falls in thick fluffy flakes, a picturesque setting. 

Thor is ridiculously, adorably excited. He's never actually seen snow before-- at least outside of his nightmares-- and he watches the snowfall with rapt attention, fascinated by the way it has transformed the world. 

“This has the look of Jotunheim!" Thor says. "Blanketed in snow!"

“I’m afraid that's where the similarities end, Thor,” Loki says.

"Let us go outside!" Thor says, forgetting his hunger, and he's pulling on his shoes before he's even changed out of his pajamas.

"Child, slow down. The snow is not going anywhere."

Thor runs back into his room and emerges a few minutes later with proper attire for outdoors. He rocks up and down on his toes as Loki pulls a hat over his head and zips up his jacket. 

“Alright, go play,” Loki says.

No sooner is the door open than Thor is dashing through it, bounding into the front yard. There’s a good foot and a half of snow on the ground and Thor gives a whoop of delight, falling backward into it. 

Loki laughs to himself for Thor is truly an incorrigible imp. Though he does not need to protect himself from the cold, Loki pulls on a jacket of his own and joins Thor outside. The climate is invigorating and enlivens him, a sense of ease falling over his person. There’s a kind of profound quiet the snow brings as if muffling the realm in a veil of peaceful silence.

As soon as he steps off the front landing, that peace is shattered by a snowball that hits him squarely in the shoulder.

“Thor,” Loki chuckles, spying the little troublemaker packing more snow into future projectiles. “You do not want to start this game with me.”

The youngster grins, a glimpse of his older self shining through for a moment in playful glee, and hurls another snowball at him. 

Thor's aim is surprisingly good for one so young and each of his snowballs hits his target-- namely, Loki. Loki retaliates with a few of his own, but also uses magic to deflect the ones Thor throws back at him.

"That's cheating!" Thor says as he dives out of the way.

"It is no such thing," Loki replies. "You are using your natural ability, while I am using mine."

Thor grins and says, "That's not very sporting!"

"You, brother, just want to win," Loki replies.

"Of course!" Thor says and he bends to scoop up more snow and launches it at his brother.

For a little while, Loki forgets all that's wrong with their situation and indulges in play with little Thor. 

They chase each other with snowballs and divert about in the front yard for the better part of an hour. Thor builds a snowman to guard the front of the house from predators and Loki enchants two rocks for eyes to give it temporary sight. They blink and track Thor’s movements as he runs around the yard.

If Thor had his way, he would frolic outside in the snow all day, but his cheeks are all red and his nose is running and it's time to go inside.

"Alright, my dearest heart, into the house with you before you turn into a little snowman yourself."

"Loki," Thor pleads. "Let me stay out!"

"No," Loki says firmly. "You can venture forth tomorrow." And he leads Thor back inside with a gentle prod.

Thor is all wet from playing in the snow and his little fingers are too numb to undo the buttons and snaps on his clothes. 

“Hold still,” Loki says and kneels to untie his wet sneakers. He’ll have to buy Thor boots if more snow is in the forecast. 

"That was fun," Thor says, grasping Loki's shoulder for support as he removes his shoes.

“Arms up,” Loki commands and Thor obediently lifts his arms while he strips the wet shirt from his frame. Static makes his hair stick up every which way and Loki smirks while smoothing down the unruly locks.

It’s then that he notices marks on Thor’s arms. Finger shaped bruises, that were definitely not there at the last bath time, encompass both of his upper arms. 

He sucks in a shocked breath. “Thor, who did this to you?” Loki asks. “How did this happen?”

Thor looks just as surprised as Loki is. “I don’t know,” he says looking down at himself, and then he whispers, “I thought it was just a dream.” 

Loki ghosts his hands over the purple welts and Thor shies back.

“It hurts when you touch it,” Thor snaps, his mouth tugging into a tight frown.

“I can heal you, if you’ll let me,” Loki says and he waits patiently until Thor steps back into his grasp. 

Loki slides his hands down Thor’s shoulders and lets his palms rest over the dual bruises. He closes his eye as seidr runs from his being down through his fingertips into Thor’s damaged skin. Healing magic is not his strong point, but maturing in a warrior culture where cuts and bruises were an everyday occurrence, Loki did learn how to magically mend the body if the damage is not too extensive.

It takes but a few minutes and when he is done Thor holds out his unblemished arms in front of him and says, “Cool!” which is clearly another Midgardian expression he’s picked up from school.

“Can you mend broken bones too?” Thor asks, his eyes alight with possibility.

“Let’s not test that, shall we Thor?” Loki replies. “You need dry clothes. Now, go get dressed,” he says and points towards Thor’s room.

As Thor disappears into his room, Loki sits back on his heels and scrubs a hand over his face. _It was her,_ Loki thinks, _that sorceress, that shrew--._

If she can dig her nails into Loki’s flesh from across a magical channel then she can certainly bruise Thor, who is well hooked in her clutches. Whatever she wants from Thor, she grows desperate to get at it. 

Time is running out.

*****

Loki’s fears come to fruition that same evening while Loki is watching the news. It’s not quite Thor’s bedtime yet when the child comes up beside him and says, "Loki, I don't feel good."

If his sickly appearance were only due to exertion from his playtime outside, then Loki would not nearly worry so, but he the moment he sees Thor, he knows it it much worse than that. The child is hot to the touch, his skin burns with fever and has paled to a pallid gray.

"Tell me what ails you," Loki says. "Where do you hurt?"

"My head feels funny," Thor replies. "I'm tired, but I'm afraid to fall asleep. Loki, don't let me fall asleep again." As he says this, he starts to get upset, tears welling in his eyes.

Overtired and feeling sick, Thor is afraid of his dreams, which is enough to overwhelm anyone. Of course the child doesn't want to fall asleep when he was physically attacked the last time.

"Shhh, don't cry," Loki soothes. "Thor, dearheart, sit with me on the couch."

Loki pulls Thor onto his lap and smooths his cool hands over Thor's feverish forehead, up and through his sweat-damp hair and down the back of his neck where the dark magic thrums beneath his skin.

The sorcery runs wild. Something is wrong. Thor shudders forcefully, then stiffens in his arms.

“Dearheart,” Loki whispers, holding the child tightly. “What is happening to you?” 

“Loki,” Thor pants. “Is that you, brother? I don’t-- I don’t know where I am.” It’s a fragment of his older self asking, misplaced in a child’s voice. A frayed thread in the binding finally broke, allowing this vestige to seep through the fissure.

“Everything is all right,” Loki soothes, trying to keep his voice sounding calm despite the outright anxiety screaming inside him. “You are with me, is that not all that matters, Thor?”

“Yes,” Thor says with a swallow. “Yes, you are right, brother.” 

Loki rests his head against Thor’s shoulder at his neck, touching his forehead to the exposed skin there, where he can touch the binding without releasing Thor from his embrace.

“I feel so strange,” Thor says. Tears stream down his little face and he gasps, “It’s so hot.”

“Don’t be scared,” Loki whispers, and in this moment he’s uncertain whether he’s reassuring Thor or himself. He closes his eye and concentrates on the dark sorcery before him.

The magical binding is scorching to his touch. Loki has mapped out enough to know that the terrain has changed, much the way a landscape is altered after a hurricane blows through. The rupture is massive, unbearable heat pouring through in waves, but Loki thinks he can weave it closed, patching up the tear enough to stabilize his brother.

It’s difficult work, pulling the ravaged threads together and holding Thor’s years in check. The magic is sharp and bites into his hold, but Loki does not let go. Guilt rises in him as he repairs the sorceress’s work. 

Like a flash of lightning, Loki’s mind races ahead to calculate the odds of Thor’s survival, if instead Loki tried to rip everything out now. The sorcery he handles is barely under his control and Thor is in a bad way with just this small breach. Loki sees clearly that the likelihood of Thor surviving such a thing is slim at best. It’s a risk, which Loki is unprepared to take.

It must be done this way. He must repair the bind. If he hopes to salvage Thor’s life, then the binding must come undone in a meticulous, controlled manner, not a spontaneous eruption-- Loki dare not leave such an important task to chance. 

By the time he is through, Loki can barely see straight. When he comes back to himself, he cannot help but sag against little Thor for a moment while he regains his bearings. There’s nothing more he can do, but it’s enough, it has to be.

The impact of his seidr takes several harrowing minutes to take effect, but once they’ve passed, Thor’s breathing equalizes, his skin is no longer ashen and hot to the touch, and his eyes are clear and youthful once more. Thor is all right again.

“I feel much better,” Thor says. He twists around, putting his little arms over Loki’s shoulders. “You healed me? Like with the bruises?”

“Not quite, brother,” Loki says. “It’s not the same.” _Just a patch job,_ Loki thinks. _How long will it hold? Until morning? Until next month?_

Loki has exhausted himself such that he cannot move from the couch. If he tries to stand, he will end up on the floor, so he leans back against the cushions, letting fatigue wash over him. Thor is stable for the time being, he assures himself. It is okay to rest. 

Thor slides off of his lap onto the cushion next to him. "It's going to hurt," Thor says quietly. "When I am made big again."

"No, dearheart,” Loki says, opening his eyes enough to look at his brother. “I will ease the way.” 

The child gives a small, knowing smile as if to reassure _him,_ as if he knows better than Loki does and is humoring _him._ Thor sits with Loki a long while, until Loki regains enough strength to stand up without stumbling. 

When he puts Thor to bed, Thor throws his arms around his neck, hugging him extra tightly and says, “Thank you, brother. I know this is hard on you, too.”

Loki lets himself be held and for a moment he is reminded of Thor as his big brother, the golden prince, who always did his best to protect him, even if he sometimes he failed.

“Goodnight, my dearest heart,” Loki replies as Thor lets go and settles under his blankets.

It is not until he is back out in the living room, well away from Thor’s door, that Loki laughs, the sound hollow and desperate. He sounds mad. 

_Mad prince Loki,_ he thinks, amusing himself.

They are well and truly living inside of a paradox. 

Loki loves this child and has envisioned their lives entwined from this point on. But the very thing that makes Thor a child will destroy him in the end. To save his life, he has to release Thor from the binding. If he does this, Loki will lose his little boy.

_Maybe I don’t have to,_ Loki thinks. _Maybe I can replace the binding with one of my own,_ and he thinks of the tree he de-aged.

But even as he pushes aside the sliding glass door and steps into the backyard, he knows it’s a desperate, unattainable fantasy. Could he do such a thing to--

_“No!”_ Loki gasps.

The oak tree that he bound is dead. 

The trunk is a dried out gray, splintered by the weight of its dead limbs which had regrown to their normal size, while the trunk itself stayed locked in youth. The branches cracked along the bark, rending the tree into chaotic, splintered pieces, and any leaves that clung on through the winter have all fallen from its branches. 

It's dead. He has killed it.

Loki sinks to his knees on the cold, snow-covered grass. 

_This_ is truly Thor’s fate. If Loki had even an ember of hope glowing in the back of his mind that there was a way to keep his child brother, then it is irrevocably stamped out now. No living thing can be bound in such a manner for very long. 

Loki suspects that Thor’s godhood would prolong his life, but long term bondage will wreak havoc on Thor’s body and mind, popping seams along the restraints as he outgrows them, letting parts of adult Thor escape while other parts continue to be locked down. Loki is not strong enough to mend every tear.

Thor would go mad, and in the end he would wither like this tree until he succumbed. Thor cannot continue to live this way, especially when the sorceress uses the dark threads of magic inside him as direct channel to hurt him. 

Loki will lose his little brother, who now might as well be his _son,_ if he transforms back into his adult self-- and that is intolerable to him.

Loki has known all along that _this_ was the endgame, but he’d sidestepped this knowledge, brushing it aside in favor of focusing on the sorcery, on taking care of his brother, on anything to distract him from thinking about the end.

*****

Loki leans in the doorway watching Thor sleep, noting the gentle rise and fall of an easy slumber. Crossing the room he sits on the edge of the bed. He’s fine now, but for how much longer?

If Loki does nothing, Thor's life will be smothered by the binding and he will die. Loki can't let that happen, but he must admit that he cannot undo this sorcery on his own. It’s too immense and there is too much at stake for him to cater to his hubris. And if Loki can’t help Thor, he will find someone who can.

Brushing a lock of Thor’s hair from his face, Loki wakes him gently. “Dearheart, I have to run an errand. Can you mind yourself and stay out of trouble for twenty minutes?”

Thor yawns. “Okay,” he says, half awake. As Thor curls back into his pillow, Loki leans down and kisses his cheek. “Be well, my little one,” Loki says.

There are wards on the cottage, keeping all manner of creature at bay. Thor will be safe here he assures himself and vanishes.

Made low by circumstance, Loki makes a desperate decision. _Thor is more important than my pride,_ Loki thinks. Still, it irks him that it has come to this. He appears again in an alley off of a busy New York street, pulling his seider around him like a cloak to disguise his countenance.

While a young woman is too busy fussing with her latte to notice, Loki steals her mobile phone, and then obscures himself from mortal view. These devices can be traced, and he would not lead any mortals to Thor until he is ready for them. He would rather they think he and Thor have been in New York the entire time.

An appearance in person would be too risky, though preferable to using a ridiculous mortal device. However, Thor is completely dependent upon him and Loki cannot risk capture or injury, for the harm his sudden absence would bring his brother would be immense.

It’s not difficult for Loki to find the correct number and a minutes later, after a few rings, a cheery voice comes on the other end.

“Good morning, Stark Industries, how may I direct your call?”

“Listen carefully for I will not repeat myself,” he says. “My name is Loki of Asgard and I must speak to Tony Stark immediately.”

He is certain that saying those words in his voice is enough to trip all kinds of alarms and signaling devices that Stark has undoubtedly built into his technology.

“Sir, what is this in regards to? Mr. Stark is very busy and does not typically take calls from--."

“Tell him this is in regards to his missing godchild. Be quick about it, for this is a very small window of opportunity I am granting him.”

“Ah... hold please,” she says and some kind tinny, sophomoric music comes on the other end. He doesn’t have to wait long.

“Kidnapping not going so well?” Stark says by way of greeting.

“Charming as always, Stark," Loki says.

“Hey, we can end this conversation right now. Tell us where you are and we'll just swing on by and pick up our little Thunder God, free of charge.”

Loki grips the phone tighter and forces his irritation away. “I’ve called to ask a favor,” Loki says. “For Thor.”

“Oh, you need _my_ help? Well, isn’t _that_ something. Why would I help a homicidal, fratricidal _lunatic_ like you that’s--.”

“No, _Thor_ needs your help,” Loki clarifies. “It’s a favor for _Thor,_ your so called ally. I am but the messenger. If you value him as much as you claim, you won’t refuse.”

“Is he alright?” Stark asks, sobering, any trace of humor gone from his voice. “At least put the little tike on the phone as a gesture of goodwill.”

“No,” Loki says. “But I will give him your regards.”

“The last time I laid eyes on Thor he was just a little kid _scared_ out of his mind--.”

_“You_ frightened him, Stark, not I,” Loki reminds him. “Do you think of all the people in this realm that he would not know his own brother?”

“How do I know you haven’t killed him?” Tony asks. 

“You don’t,” Loki says. “But for what it’s worth, I haven’t.”

“Oh, that’s _very_ reassuring,” Tony snaps. “Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”

“Enough of this,” Loki retorts. “Are you really willing to wager against Thor’s life on the chance that I am lying to you? Thor is in need of your aid. You will either help him or you won’t. Nothing else is relevant.”

“All right, okay,” Tony says with a sigh. “I’ll bite. What exactly does he need?”

“A sorcerer,” Loki replies.

“But... isn’t that what _you_ are?”

_“Obviously--.”_

“Because if you’re saying you can’t perform,” Stark interrupts, “we both know that’s not the first time _that’s_ happened,” Stark replies. “Sounds like a recurring problem. You should really get checked out.”

"We have no time for this, Stark!” Loki hisses. “The boy is _dying_ a little bit everyday. Surely _that_ is a concept your pathetic mortal mind can grasp.”

“Loki, what is going on?” Stark asks. “You’re not exactly being forthcoming with the details.”

“Thor has been _cursed,_ you fool,” Loki spits. “And for my life, I cannot undo it!” His voice lowers to a whisper and he says, “Would that I could release him from that binding.”

“It wasn’t _you_ that turned him into a kid,” Stark says suddenly, his voice rife with realization. “And you’re telling me that you can’t fix it, and if Thor doesn’t change back soon, he’s going to die.”

Loki breathes a sigh into the phone. “Yes, that is the essence of the matter.”

“Why not?” Stark asks. “Why can’t you fix it?”

“With all your technology, your intelligence, can you unspool time? Can you hold it between your hands?” Loki asks. “Sorcery is fluid and it takes time to learn its ebbs and flows-- time that Thor does not have.”

“No, you misunderstand-- I’m not challenging you. I don’t know what you are asking me for, Loki. You say Thor needs a sorcerer, and you are one, but you tell me you can’t help him-- so what does he really need?”

“An earth sorcerer-- one who understands _seidr_ culled directly from the earth core,” Loki says. “Perhaps more than one. He needs the best your resources can obtain. I will not put my brother’s life in the hands of a novice.”

He had thought of asking them to help capture the sorceress and force her to undo the binding herself, but Loki will not put Thor in direct contact with his abuser. Should they try to force her, Loki fears she would kill Thor before she would let him go. It would be easy for her to murder Thor now that he’s a vulnerable five year old with her magic ensnared around his very core. Best then, if she is not aware of his plan until it is too late.

“First thing’s first-- you bring Thor here and we’ve got a deal," Tony says. “No Thor, no deal.”

“I will not relinquish him to a group of strangers and I will not allow him to be experimented on. You shall grant me entrance to your facility and I will work with your sorcerer to remove the binding that locks him in child form. When it is finished, you shall allow me to leave.”

“Those are a lot of demands for one favor,” Stark says. “Fury is not going to let you just stroll out of here, Loki. There’s zero chance of that happening.”

“It is a risk I am willing to take, when the time comes,” Loki says. “But we must have peace until Thor is well again. I shall have your word on that.”

There’s silence on the other end for a moment before Stark says, “This is a trick, isn’t it? The God of Mischief is prank calling me. Are you going to ask me if my refrigerator is running, too?

“I realize you mortals have lesser cognitive abilities,” Loki begins, “but do I seem like someone who would waste his own time? Who would risk so much for a mere prank?”

“Well, shit,” Stark says. “You know, you’re beginning to sound like you actually care about Thor. Way to damage your reputation, there, sport."

“Do I have your word?” Loki asks, his patience just about through.

“Yes.”

*****

Loki reappears in their front yard, just in front of Thor’s snowman. The eyes have fallen out and lay atop of the snow, looking up at him in condemnation.

He needs a minute to collect himself before he starts making arrangements for Thor. There was little doubt that Stark would agree to help Thor, and Loki discovers that the most difficult task still remains. 

Loki must tell Thor. The boy will understand, he knows this, but Loki doesn’t want him to be afraid or think something nonsensical like he’s grown tired of him and is being passed off to Stark, or that he’s done something wrong.

With a sigh, Loki reaches for the front door. Though he’s only been gone eighteen minutes, the moment Loki steps foot in the cottage, he knows something is terribly wrong.

"Thor?" Loki calls, his instincts kicking into high alert.

"Loki of Asgard,” a voice rasps, “I call you out."

Standing there in their tiny cottage kitchen is the sorceress herself and she has Thor cornered against the table, ready to lay her dark nails into his flesh.

*****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a _beast._ Lots of stuff to tell you, lots of difficult stuff. As I was writing this, I realized that this chapter in particular might give some of you uncontrollable feels as the angst level is high! Sorry, friends. I can't seem to not infuse all my fan works with angst.
> 
> I did an illustration for chapter three, which you can see [here](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/35805032456/loki-does-not-know-how-he-got-here-how-his-pure).
> 
> And another little sketch of Thor from a moment in chapter four [here.](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/37272465236/thor-obstinately-rolls-over-putting-his-back-to) Feel free to reblog and help spread the little Thor love around :)
> 
> There's _one_ more chapter, guys! :_( I can't believe it's almost over! 
> 
> You can stay in touch with me and keep tabs on my writing progress on "Godchild" through [twitter](https://twitter.com/griseldajaane), [tumblr](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/) and [LJ](http://griseldajane.livejournal.com/). (And also my sketches, illustrations and commission info!)
> 
> Thanks everybody! :)


	5. Part Five: Acceptance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Let us be reasonable, Loki,” The sorceress says. “You may claim what’s left of Thor when we are through. I make no assertions to keep him beyond his purpose and he may live yet.”

**GODCHILD**  
\-- PART FIVE --

 

A single beat of his heart is all the time it takes for Loki to make sense of the scene before him. Thor is backed against the kitchen table, pinned in place with terror as the sorceress looms over him. As she leans towards the child, her black eyes flit to Loki’s with a leer that promises malice before turning her dark attention back to Thor. 

Blood rushes in his ears, a dull roar that seems to suffuse the entire space, and Loki’s vision _crimsons,_ breathtaking rage overwhelming him for the horrid woman who has tormented his child without respite. Wrath bars all reason from his mind and he hastens with singular purpose.

Loki darts towards the wicked figure and his darling boy, and when the sorceress reaches for Thor, her slender fingers are met with an unseen obstruction-- a barrier spell-- the very same one Loki used on Thor in the early weeks of their time together.

Seizing his chance, Thor ducks under the table, scampering across the floor tiles, and flinging himself into Loki’s reach.

Like a viper snatching a mouse, Loki scoops the child up into his protective grasp, and whirls him away from the sorceress. 

Thor grips him more tightly than he ever has before-- Loki feels the frantic beating of his heart pulsing wildly against his own chest.

“Did she hurt you?” Loki asks him. "Thor, dearheart, are you all right?"

Though clearly terrified, Thor nods. His little arms clutch around Loki’s neck as he glares across the table at his aggressor.

A bone-rattling chill has settled into the cottage, as if death itself has crawled its way inside, and Thor trembles in Loki’s hold, his skin as cold as if he’d been doused with water of Jotunheim. The chill emanates from this woman who is barely held at bay by Loki’s seidr. 

“I didn’t expect resistance from you,” the sorceress says, leveling him with a wicked stare. Unperturbed by Loki’s interference, she does not view him as a threat. 

With dark hair spilling in wild curls down her back and unblemished, olive skin, the sorceress is a timeless beauty. Her dress is elegant and flowing, fastened at one shoulder, cinched at the waist, it clings to her feminine curves, and she treads soundlessly on sandaled feet. Upon first glance, innocence exudes from her, as if she is a flawless fruit ripe for picking by the hands of mankind, and countless men no doubt have tried. Scores of men have prostrated themselves at her feet, begging to do her most menial bidding, if but for one benevolent touch from her honeyed fingers. 

But the breath of cold that sweeps around her betrays her wicked intent as do her soulless, dead eyes. If she ever held the light of compassion within her, it has long since gone out. The centuries have made her a twisted, vile _thing._ In all of Yggdrasil there could not be a more repellent creature to Loki than she. 

No begging shall be wrought from _his_ lips, of that he is certain.

_“You_ of all people should be glad for my assistance in disabling the mighty Thor,” she continues.

“Do not pretend to know me,” Loki replies.

She laughs then, no mirth in the hollow sound. “Most know how you feel about Thor the Thunderer, even _I_ who has been slumbering for quite a long while.”

Shifting in his arms, Thor fidgets upon hearing her words. Loki hugs Thor nearer to him, and is suddenly glad for the falling out they already had over his feelings for his brother. They’ve been tested and the sorceress’s remark will not cause a rift between them.

“And who is it that intrudes upon the princes of Asgard?” Loki asks her.

With a simpering smile she says, “I am Circe of Aeaea.”

The name conjures nothing but a brief remembrance from some Midgardian text on mythic gods and goddesses. His own name appears in the same book, his supposed history warped and outrageous, and so he chose not to take too much stock in the text.

Her mouth quirks up in a wry smile. “You do not know me,” she says, amused by this, as if Loki is the first man she has encountered who is not cowed by her name alone. “But I have slept a long time. I am ready to reclaim my place in this world.”

Her eyes flicker from Loki to the space in front of her. She places her palm against the invisible barrier. It does not yield against her touch, but it ripples where her fingertips curl against it. 

“I will concede that I am out of practice,” Circe says. “I did not intend to transform him into a child. I merely meant to weaken him, to make Thor vulnerable, though it appears my magic has done _exactly_ that-- rearranged the Thunder God into a more vulnerable shape.”

“This was an _accident?”_ Loki blurts out, a streak of panic burgeoning in his gut. If this was uncalculated, a magical _blunder,_ could it even be reversed? Was it already too late for Thor the moment he was transformed?

“Not exactly an accident,” Circe says. “I purposely lured him away from his warriors and wove my spell from the shadows. The Thunderer thought I was you, and before he realized his mistake it was too late for him,” she says with a wicked smile. 

She _revels_ in this, retelling the chaos she has caused. She enjoys breaking the hearts of proud men. In another time, Loki thinks what an ally she might have made. Even so, the sorceress has crossed him, and his uncompromising heart will never forgive her for attacking Thor.

_“Why_ have you done this to him?” Loki asks because he must know the reason for all this suffering. This woman has caused them nothing but strife, and if Thor’s torment is for purely her own amusement, Loki will strike her down dead before she takes her next breath.

“Even fire sometimes needs an accelerant to burn its brightest,” she says. “I grow tired of waiting to be restored and see no reason to delay when power could so easily be obtained if not for one recalcitrant little boy.”

Little fingers dig into Loki’s shoulder as the sorceress casts her malevolent gaze upon Thor. Shielding him with his arm, Loki vows, “You will _never_ have him.”

“I could not care _less_ about your Thunderer,” she snaps. “I do not want _Thor.”_ She spits out his name in contempt. “What I prize is his hammer and the power it possesses.”

A laugh bubbles up from Loki’s throat. _Mjolnir! Of course she wants the hammer._ Even Loki coveted the cherished weapon once. 

The raw power contained in Mjolnir is intoxicating, just a taste is enough to seduce even the strongest of men. It is no small wonder that a condition is placed on the ancient weapon for all those who seek to wield it.

That Mjolnir does not hold Thor in thrall speaks volumes of the kind of man he is.

“Every time the Thunder God struck the ground with his hammer, its magic coursed through the earth, calling me from my sleep,” Circe explains. “However, it seems that none but Thor can lift his precious weapon, not even a sorceress as powerful as _I_ can move it, nor access its vast power. His own memories reveal that it is useless to try without Thor himself, and thus I _need_ him as a means to an end."

Her admission etches lines of contempt deep into Loki’s soul. Battle and bloodshed have beset Thor’s dreams, and during those nights when Thor could not stop trembling and his tears would not subside, Loki wondered why his little charge was made to suffer memories of his adult life through moments of horrifying combat.

It’s evident now that his nightmares came from the sorceress’s nightly exploits, as she rummaged through Thor’s memories when his sleeping mind was most pliable, preying upon him for answers to her mad quest for Mjolnir’s might. She sought ways to access the hammer-- to see if any before her had been successful in commandeering the ancient weapon.

Finding no instances where Thor had relinquished his power or others seized the hammer from him, Circe had finally come for Thor himself.

“Whosoever holds this hammer, if he be _worthy,_ shall possess the power of Thor,” Loki recites. “Did you think that part of the legend untrue?”

“Imagine my displeasure when I realized just how true it was. Nevertheless, I need Thor now,” she says. “I have no quarrel with you, Loki. Stand aside and you may go free.”

_“No._ You have trespassed against my kin and so you have trespassed against me,” he says. “I would no sooner stand aside than cede my life to you.”

“Before this day is over you may do both,” she says. “I am not some mere mortal. I was practicing magic _eight hundred years_ before you were born.”

“By your own admission you are weakened,” Loki replies.

“I am strong enough for this,” she says. “You know in your heart that you are outmatched.”

As if to illustrate, she takes a step forward, pushing at Loki’s barrier with her palms. It takes little effort before she bends the unseen wall enough to grant herself passage through it.

Thor lets out a frightened gasp and Loki ushers them back further, his arms firmly around his brother. “Hold tight to me,” he whispers.

“Let us be reasonable, Loki,” Circe says. “You may claim what’s left of Thor when we are through. I make no assertions to keep him beyond his purpose and he may live yet.”

“Do not deal in lies when you have no talent for it,” Loki says. “You try to coerce me into easy trade when it is obvious that if you truly had the power to take Thor, you would not be bargaining with me now-- you would simply take him.”

“So be it,” she says, and darts towards them, casting threads of her magic forward like a spiderweb of fire. 

She is quick, but Loki is, too.

Clutching Thor to him, Loki cloaks them both in darkness, disappearing beneath the veil and reappearing in the shadow on the other side of the room.

Loki could take Thor and vanish, re-appearing right in the heart of Stark’s tower. But it is not in him to run when he is this angry, and the opportunity for retribution has so neatly presented itself to him. 

Viciousness thrives in the sorceress's heart. She would deplete all of her remaining power just to smite Thor should she be denied what she wants. No matter how much physical space Loki puts between them, there is no safe distance from her persecution as long as her dark magic flows through his brother’s body.

Loki must put an end to this now. He kneels, setting Thor down on the floor before turning to face the sorceress. 

Every bit as fierce as she is lovely, Circe’s power crazed desperation makes her a formidable opponent. It is good then that Loki has never been swayed by appearances.

Thor hangs onto his hip as if afraid to break physical contact, but he peers around him at the sorceress with wide, attentive eyes. Loki cannot spare Thor a glance, though he takes Thor’s little hand in his, squeezing it gently.

“It’s going to be alright,” Loki says. “But you must stand back until it is over.”

Threads of dark magic lash out at them like a whip. Loki parries with seidr of his own as Thor does his best to stay out of the way of the two dueling sorcerers.

Conjuring a set of ice blades, Loki hurls them as he advances, striking hard and fast. They go hand to hand, trading magic enhanced blows, it’s thrilling and terrifying, a combination of mental and physical athletics.

Though she looks like a young and fragile maiden, Circe is anything but. With a roar, she takes a swing at Loki and tiny whipcords of magic flair from her limb like a flog. Avoiding the blow, Loki darts backward, but the sizzle in the air brings a taste of metal to his mouth.

Pressing her advantage, Circe continues to strike at him with her dark threads of magic. Loki throws a spread of ice blades at her, aiming them at her heart. Her magic whips disappear and the kitchen table suddenly upends, the polished wood surface catching the frozen knives. 

It seems she cannot do two things at once, but Loki has little time to process this before Circe sends the table at him, trying to crush him into the wall like an insect beneath a boot. 

Vaulting over the table, Loki goes straight for her throat, smothering her dark fiery magic with ice as he launches himself at her.

Losing ground, Circe stumbles back, coils of magic run off her as she tries to free herself from the trap of ice, and Loki grasps at his chance to stop her. 

Using his seidr to hold her in place, he calls upon the hoary winter that courses through his Jotun form, channeling his frost giant touch into her flesh.

A tortured wail rips from Thor’s throat, the shriek plunging a knife straight into Loki’s heart. Tempted to turn away, Loki _knows_ this is a ploy to divert his attention.

He mustn’t lose his concentration, he must forge on-- _but Thor--_

“I do not need to touch him to make him scream,” the sorceress jeers. “Do you know how much pain your brother has endured in his long life?” Circe asks. “I can make him remember _all_ of it at once.”

And to Loki’s horror, the more he bears down on Circe, the louder Thor cries. It is as if _Loki_ is causing Thor untold pain and he cannot brave it.

The tormented scream unmakes him. Loki is compelled to look, and he does, turning away from the sorceress towards the awful sound. On the floor behind him, Thor is wreathed into himself, trembling as he clutches his head between both hands. He writhes, broken sobs wrested from his throat in a hoarse cry that no child should ever make.

The moment Loki’s focus lapses, she bursts free of his ice, sending shards flying in all directions, the brunt of it forcing Loki back.

“Miserable harpy,” Loki hisses as he drops to a protective crouch in front of Thor. He keeps his gaze trained on her, but his hands find Thor’s body. Tiny fingers latch onto his pant leg, tugging at the material.

“I’m-- I am okay, brother,” Thor says. “She couldn’t hold it and force you away.”

_My sweet, brave little one,_ Loki thinks. _You have endured so much for one so young._

“What a vile, cowardly creature you are to attack a small child,” Loki snarls as Circe steps nearer.

“He is not a small child, though, not really,” she says. “At present, Thor is what I made him into, Loki. And I say he is a means to an end. That end is right now.”

A slight electrical charge in the air is all the warning he gets before fiery threads of magic bolt at them. Throwing himself bodily over Thor, Loki uses his seidr to shield them both from the onslaught of her sorcery. 

Looming over the pair, her hair wild and her eyes eclipsed to black, Circe does not falter. Her power is unrelenting and magnificent with rage. The tendrils of her magic flick outward, and with a loud snap, they break Loki. His defences buckle under the extreme force, and he burns as the dark threads make contact with his flesh. 

The pain is so brilliant that for an instant Loki leaves himself as his mind goes blank. Her violent anger, her wicked triumph, her desperation all bleed through when her raw magic invades him, her tiny threads of sorcery storming his body. 

“Loki!” Thor screams as he writhes. “No, Loki!”

Slithering inside him like spiked wire come to life, Loki feels the threads weaving together, the beginnings of a binding being formed.

With enough presence of mind to open his eyes, Loki sees Thor glaring at the sorceress, who stands before them with a deranged look of glee. Despite all that she has done to him, Thor does not abandon Loki when she advances. His knees bump against Loki’s back as he leans over him, his little hand curling around him, clutching Loki’s arm in a tense grip. 

Circe bends down, her mass of hair sliding from her shoulders in a cascading curtain, and she caresses Thor’s cheek as his mother might have done, but it is a mockery of kindness. Thor shies back from her, trying to evade her touch, and she follows him, kicking Loki away with a sandaled foot, and insinuates herself between the brothers.

_I’ll flay the skin from your flesh for touching him,_ Loki thinks as he struggles to regain his senses.

“You will relinquish Mjolnir’s power over to me,” she coos softly. “Or I’ll kill your brother right here. Paint the walls of this lovely house with his insides, a nice dark red.”

Thor doesn’t say anything but a frightened gasp escapes his lips.

“How about a preview?” she asks. 

Before he can process these words, agony sprints up Loki’s arm and a deep slash appears. Blood streams from the cut in a gruesome spray, he can feel the warmth of it run down his skin. It’s a deep wound. Loki senses the blood draining from the artery and he must divert some energy to closing the wound if he hopes not to bleed out. 

“No! Loki! Please, no!” Thor screams, his voice tormented as Loki’s blood wells upon the floor.

Circe grabs him by the arms and hisses, “Relinquish your power unto me!” She’s breathing heavy, exhausted from expending so much sorcery.

“Don’t kill my brother,” Thor pleads. “Please, you can have anything you want.”

But Thor can no more surrender his hammer to Circe than he can will his own heart from beating. It simply isn’t up to him. No one but the All-father can alter the obedience of Mjolnir’s heart. What Circe doesn’t understand, and never will, is that only she can make herself worthy of Mjolnir. And she's not off to a very good start.

Circe’s eyes narrow and she says, “Do not trifle with me, boy. You think I cannot taste a lie when it is served to me?”

A sneer tightens across Thor’s face, his anger getting the better of him, and then a white hot pulse of lightning flows through him, electrocuting Circe where she stands. 

Even at five years old, Thor is a fighter. Circe releases him and falls to her knees, stunned.

Thor wastes no time and darts around her, running towards Loki.

“Oh, you’ll regret that, Thunderer,” she says and throws her own brand of electric fire at him. Thor lets out an anguished wail and falls to the floor as she burns him. He writhes in pain, a little more than an arm's length from where Loki lies. 

Loki feels Circe’s magic lessen inside him as some of it leaves him to inflict torment on Thor. Her power is not strong enough to be divided, and so she must choose where to utilize it before her well runs dry.

_No!_ Loki thinks as his dearest heart cries out in pain. _I_ must _get up._

Wrath surges within, strengthening him. The threads of dark magic inside Loki fray, and then snap, her sorcery retreating in the face of his increasing fury.

Thor is screaming and it’s all Loki can hear. Rage hums tangibly around him as he gathers every power available to him, dipping into a well of strength he did not know he possessed. 

He will not let Thor be harmed any further. This sorceress is powerful, but her desperation has revealed her hand-- her sorcery is just about depleted. After centuries of status, she needs something like Mjolnir to replenish her for the next thousand years. She is a flame that’s about to burn out and she knows it. 

Caught up in the thrill of torturing Thor, Circe does not notice when Loki rises to his feet. There are gaps in her magic, a momentary reprieve for Thor as her power flickers in and out like a shutter caught in the wind. 

When she finally looks up and catches sight of Loki, it is too late for her to stop him. Loki knocks her away from the child, pinning her to the floor with his magic. Chanting, voice low, he calls upon the most ancient of magics he knows. It rolls off his skin in green wisps of smoke. Circe laughs at first, but then she realizes what Loki means to do and her eyes go wide with alarm. 

Studying the earth magic that binds Thor has given Loki a wicked notion, an idea that will trap this sorceress until Loki falls during Ragnarok.

Circe draws her power from the earth, takes its very life force to conjure her magic. Loki will do the same, except he will use his own body to draw from instead of this realm. To stop her, Loki must sever her ties to the earth, her source of power. 

He scrapes a flake of bone from his own rib to use as a foundation for the cage he must construct, coughing it up with a little blood into his hand. He fashions a coffer from his seidr to encase her in. It’s magic borne of his Jotun flesh, of seidr he learned on Asgard. 

Magic flows through him, ravaging his body for fortitude, taking whatever it needs to bind her into a case formed by his seidr. She rages against him, toiling with the strips of seidr as they wrap around her, and Loki does not know _where_ his strength comes from, but he thinks of Thor, and how he loves him and how that love must be protected, and does not let go.

It’s barbaric to trap another creature in this way, but he abides this because anything less damns Thor to her malevolence and she will not show him mercy. 

He _must_ separate Circe from Thor. They are linked now, through her magic. If he severs her from her power, then he severs her power from Thor, and he will be safe from her treachery at last. Thor will have no more torment at her hands. 

Her magic is of the earth and Loki will cut it from her as one cuts the heart from a sacrifice. 

“I can give him to you forever!” she shrieks in desperation. “Your true feelings are in your magic, God of Lies, I know what you desire most.” 

Loki will not listen. He will not be deterred. Circe is nearly encased, his magic wrapping around her like a cocoon.

“With a permanent bind,” she says, “Thor will never grow old, will never lose his pure, unselfish love for you. Thor can be your sweet little child for all time. You will be loved for the rest of your long life-- Thor will love you eternally--."

“No,” Loki says softly, though it is his heart’s greatest wish. “No, I will not have him this way.”

“It’s the only way you will _ever_ have him! He will _never_ love you back,” she spits. “How could he love a _monster_ like you? When Thor is grown again, he will not love you! Thor will _never_ lo--.”

He knots closed the last thread of his binding and the sorceress's voice is muffled. Narrow ribbons of bone configure around her, shrinking down and hardening fast. When the smoke clears, Circe is gone, confined inside the box he holds between his hands.

It’s quiet, Loki thinks, the lack of sound similar to the void between Yggdrasil’s branches. His mind is sluggish and he doesn’t understand when the kitchen undulates like the ocean before his vision and the floor rises up to meet him.

Little hands are on him, holding to either side of his face, directing his gaze. Worried blue eyes meet his as Thor leans over him, shaking him. Thor is scared. He knows something is wrong. Loki recognizes his small voice, crying and pleading with him.

“It’s all right, my dearest heart,” Loki whispers. He wants to reach up and dry Thor’s tears, wants to take him in his arms and hold him close and kiss his cheek, but he has barely the strength to talk. His words will have to be enough. “Everything is going to be... all right.”

His eyes fall shut and his thoughts drifts away into nothing to the sound of Thor screaming.

*****

Loki opens his eyes, blinking against the harsh light of day, and sees the stippled ceiling of his bedroom overhead. He sits up quickly.

Someone brought him to bed.

He raises his arm and sees it dressed, bloody stips of cotton winding from wrist to elbow.

Someone bandaged his arm.

He pulls away the stained gauze and his arm is nearly healed, nothing but a red bruise where the gash had been. Many hours must have passed for his wounds to have healed. Possibly _days_ have gone by.

“Thor!” Loki calls, throwing back the bed sheet. 

His heart rate skyrockets as he worries about where his brother is and _who_ he could have possibly called to help him, for a child his size could not dress his wounds and carry him to bed. 

If it’s the Avengers, they’ll have taken Thor from him for sure. He’s in no condition to fight them off now. He didn’t properly explain to Stark and he knows the Avenger does not quite believe that he hasn’t hurt Thor.

Rushing from the bed is a mistake. His knees buckle and he falls back to the mattress awkwardly. 

“Gently, brother, you have exerted yourself greatly,” a voice calls across the room.

Loki’s head whips up. Standing in the doorway is Thor, not his endearing golden haired little child, but his fully grown God of Thunder older brother. 

“Thor...” Loki whispers.

Eyes wide and mouth hanging open, Loki is grateful he’s sitting down for he certainly would have keeled over from the shock of seeing his brother full grown once again. 

_Of course,_ Loki thinks. _I severed Circe from her magic and so have separated the magical link between them and thus they are separated. I should not be surprised. I should have known without her sorcery to sustain the bind, Thor would be released to his true form. I should not be surprised-- I should not--_

“Are you well, Loki?” Thor asks him with a hopeful smile. 

Thor crosses the room and sits next to him on the bed. He’s a mountain, big and broad, a gentle giant smiling at him in hesitation, and very different from the little boy he was hours earlier.

“I found you unconscious and wounded. The kitchen of this place is destroyed and I awoke amid the debris naked as the day I was born.” 

Thor somehow managed to squeeze into some of Loki’s clothes. The shirt pulls tight across his broad chest and the pants he wears now are Loki’s loose-fitting pajama bottoms.

Loki can only stare at him. _My little one is gone,_ he thinks. Breath quickening, Loki forces himself to be calm, tamping the panic down deep where it would not so easily burst free.

Still, Thor seems to sense that Loki is quickly coming undone and he drapes his hand on the back of Loki’s neck to comfort him. Heavy and warm against his skin, the weight of Thor’s hand actually does offer him some solace. Loki knows he could rage and rail out of control and would gain not a step under the burden of this hand. Thor would bear his pieces as he falls apart, and would hold them together until Loki is able to remake himself.

After a moment, Thor says, “I am at a loss, brother. I do not know how I came to be here with you nor what has happened to put you in such a state.” 

“You don’t...” Loki beings, shaking his head. “What _do_ you remember, Thor?”

Thor is quiet for a long time as he searches his memory. “I woke up on the floor out there,” he begins, tracing his memories backward. “You were unconscious and bleeding. I did not know what had happened or where we were. Before that-- it is a blank. I remember-- I _think_ I remember leaving the Tower, but I do not know how long ago that was, though it feels a century.”

Thor remembers _nothing_ of their months together. _Of course_ Thor wouldn’t remember. 

“What has happened, Loki?” he asks earnestly.

Loki looks at his hands as he tells the story, wanting to remember _his_ Thor as he was not as he is now. He begins with finding Thor in the alley and stops with trapping Circe in the box, revealing only the bare bones of the story. 

He doesn’t tell Thor everything, of the nightmares or the making friends at school or of teaching Thor to cook. He doesn’t tell Thor how adored he was, how everyone loved him, or how the child in him had worshiped Loki.

These things, he keeps to himself. They are his own sorrows now.

Needing distance, Loki stands, but Thor catches his hand. The large, calloused hand nearly completely covers his slender one and Loki can’t help but stare. Mere hours ago, it was Loki’s hand that fit completely around Thor’s. 

_His tiny little fingers clutching at my shoulder,_ Loki thinks.

“Loki...” Thor says, pulling Loki towards him with a steady but gentle tug. “I was really a child as you say?”

“Yes,” Loki replies, letting himself be steered. “You were as tall as my waist. Probably the only time in our lives I could pick _you_ up.”

Thor takes his other hand and clasps it over Loki’s, rubbing gently at the bone in his wrist with his thumb. “Thank you for taking care of me, brother,” Thor says. And he means this with the utmost sincerity.

Despite himself, Loki reaches out to smooth Thor’s blond hair from his eyes. The fates smiled upon them because Thor might have been destroyed when Circe's magic was abruptly cut from him. 

In that impassioned instant, Loki had not been thinking about that. His sole thought was to stop her from ever hurting Thor again, and his reasoning had stopped there, sentiment clouding his logic. The risk Loki took makes his knees weaken when he thinks that he might have unwittingly _killed_ his brother in a moment of emotional thinking.

Taking Thor’s face between his hands, a gesture he had done many times when Thor was in child form, Loki stares into Thor’s eyes, searching for something that reminds him of his other self.

Loki sees nothing, cannot get past his sharp angled jaw, nor the stubbly skin that is hot to his touch, nor the shining light of wonder that is missing from his blue eyes.

“My sweet little boy is gone,” Loki says. His eyes shine with tears, but pride does not grant them freedom. He releases Thor and steps away. 

He senses that Thor wants to say something, but blessedly Thor remains silent. Loki goes into the living room, sees that the damage from his battle with Circe did not destroy the cottage. The kitchen will need to be rebuilt and the furniture replaced, but the other rooms are surprisingly sound. 

Thor follows him out of the bedroom and looks around the cottage with interest now that he knows the truth. 

Loki’s heart is beating wildly and he realizes he’s suddenly, inexplicably _nervous._ His brother is no longer the engaging child Loki had come to cherish over the past few months. Thor is a man once again-- a rival once again. What will he think of the months they spent together in a parent-child construct? Will he misunderstand? Will he mock Loki and how he succumbed to sentimentality after all?

There are drawings and a few of Thor’s school papers still fixed to the refrigerator. The god of Thunder lifts a crayon sketch he’d done weeks ago-- their family portrait-- and examines it closely. He’d drawn the two of them holding hands and smiling with the words “To Loki, love Thor” scrawled on the bottom in block print. 

Loki takes a step forward. He’d never admit it, but it’s his favorite of all Thor’s drawings to him. If Thor damages it, he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“I remember this,” Thor says instead and he looks at Loki with amazement.

“You... _you do?”_ Loki asks. “But I thought--.”

“This house-- I remember--,” Thor interrupts. He puts the drawing down and walks to where the kitchen table had been. “This is where I zapped you with lightning. I didn’t know what had happened. I’d thought I’d killed you.” 

His words are swift as each memory flashes before him and Loki realizes that their time together is not lost to him.

Thor strides past Loki into the living room and points to the couch. “You watched cartoons with me on Saturday mornings. Mindless drivel, you said, but you let me anyway.” He looks out the glass doors to the small backyard. “You played with me on the beach, helped me dig shells out of the sand.”

"You... remember?" Loki asks, a little dumbfounded. "Everything?"

"Yes," Thor says sounding just as surprised. "By the nine-- _Loki--."_ He presses a hand to his temple and leans against the wall, overwhelmed by the sudden influx of information.

Loki takes two steps in his direction and then falters.

“No, I can’t do this,” Loki says, shaking his head and backing away. He feels exposed, as if gutted and his insides strewn about for Thor to see. His grief is suffocated by sharp, painful, _intolerable_ hope--

“No, I cannot-- I can _not!”_ Loki shouts, and he vanishes from the cottage, leaving Thor alone in the place that had been their home for four months.

*****

One week passes, and then two go by, the days frittered away until more than a fortnight has elapsed with barely a notice.

Loki can’t bear to go back to the cottage to collect his things and set the place to rights, not yet. There are still several weeks left on the rental and he’ll deal with it then. The most Loki could do was call Thor’s school the day after, and tell them that there had been an urgent situation, that they were leaving immediately and _no,_ there was no time for Thor to say goodbye.

No messages have come from Stark or the Avengers, nor from Thor himself. Though Loki did catch sight of him once in the background of a news report. His heart pounded wildly when he recognized his broad frame. Captain America had ushered Thor quickly into Stark Tower with a hand at his elbow, as Stark himself paused to answer a few questions put forth by reporters about some ridiculous energy project he was working on. 

The brief glimpse of Thor he’d had confirmed that his brother had found his way back to New York unscathed, though he looked subdued and his gaze was unfocused and distant when the camera panned over him.

But thoughts of his brother are too distressing, dredge up too many raw emotions, and so Loki pushes all thoughts of Thor away where he does not have to acknowledge their heavy presence in his heart. 

Everything is insufferably quiet without a five year old underfoot. Loki wanders through the rooms of his New York apartment in a fog, trying to recall his life before little Thor came about and disrupted it all so thoroughly. At times, his life has been lonely. It never bothered him before, but now that he’s known companionship, he feels its loss keenly.

He had not asked for this-- it had not been one of his ploys to meddle with Thor and his band of Midgardian cretins. It should not be this difficult to get back to order, but for some reason Loki is bereft of motivation.

All traces of child Thor had been stripped from the space before they left for Massachusetts. If not for the drawings Loki has secretly stashed away, it’s as if he never existed. 

Grief is not a clean thing. It is not over once it has passed, but circles back again in waves, crashing upon him in intervals, like the tide upon the shore.

Sometimes, Loki thinks it was for the best. Thor was suffering under Circe's hex. It was best for Thor to return to his adult age.

Other times Loki rages, his anger profound and deep.

What good is it to love another if it can never last? What use it is to expose your heart if only to have it torn asunder? Love is a knife that cuts deep in the end. Loki forgot what a keen wound sentiment leaves.

Loki didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. He didn’t get the chance to _prepare_ himself for goodbye. It’s not as if child Thor has simply gone home to Asgard where Loki can't follow. His Thor doesn’t exist anymore. There is no solace in that. Loki grieves for a child that was never truly born, and hardly lived, a child whom he loved with every beat of his cold Jotun heart.

“He liked pancakes and poptarts and running on the beach and the blue monster Grover and drawing with crayons,” Loki whispers as if saying the words out loud will summon him from beyond, will make him real once more.

*****

Twenty-two days have passed, May is nearly over, and Loki has not ventured forth from his apartment in all that time. He sits on his couch, idly flipping the box with the sorceress trapped inside between his hands. It looks to be carved from ivory, but it's really a binding forged from a piece of his own bone, engraved with runes and protections to keep Circe inside and the lid firmly closed.

He's not sure what to do with it. It must never be opened. If Circe were to escape, Loki knows her wrath would be unmatched. His death sits in this box, and possibly Thor's too. 

The perfect place to stash the box would be in Odin’s vault in Asgard or deep in the frozen ground of Jotunheim, where Circe’s magic would leave her completely, even if the box was opened. But Loki cannot venture there, and he dare not ask Thor to take it on his next trip. If anything were to happen...

As one last gesture of kindness to his little boy, he needs to at least get her away from Thor. He thinks that perhaps he will submerge it into one of the oceans of this realm, perhaps somewhere in the arctic, let it sink down into hidden depths where no mortal can ever touch it.

But not just yet. Loki rises from the couch and puts the box back on the shelf where he keeps other dangerous things.

Knowing that he must venture out sometime soon, Loki goes into the kitchen to make himself a cup of tea. He will sit calmly and have tea and think about how he will go on from here.

Opening a cabinet, Loki glances up at the shelf where he keeps his cups and sucks in a breath. There, tucked into the cupboard with his dishes, is the bright yellow box of Cheerios he’d bought for Thor on their very first night together. He’d completely forgotten about it.

Loki lifts the cereal box with both hands, looking at the sunny packaging and bold characters, and suddenly the black letters blur together. The box falls from his fingers, hitting the counter with a rattle. He slumps into a chair and drops his head into his hands.

He remembers that first night, when he couldn’t get over how _small_ Thor was, how innocent and trusting, his little arms holding his neck tight. To his shame, he remembers wanting to use Thor to his advantage, meaning to play him against both the All-father and Avengers like a pawn in some great game. And he remembers the shock that overtook him when he discovered the evil threads of magic that lurked inside Thor, binding him to a child’s shape. 

Tears come, despite his will. Once they start rolling down his cheeks, they don't stop. No amount of self recrimination will stop them.

“Loki?” a voice calls out in a loud whisper.

Loki starts, a thrill of panic running through him at being caught with tears on his face. He wipes the traces of sentiment quickly from his cheeks and peers through the doorway into the living room. 

There is only one who could enter his home uninvited.

It’s Thor. _Of course_ it’s Thor, standing there in Midgardian clothing, but with Mjolnir gripped in one hand and a none too bright expression on his face. He’s come in through the fire escape, one leg still partly out the window. 

The window had been locked, but to someone with Thor’s strength, he mustn’t have even noticed he broke through the bolt. Thor surveys the living room as if trying to remember if this is the right place or if he’s broken into a stranger’s apartment.

“Get out,” Loki commands, his tone brooking no arguments, and naturally, upon seeing him, Thor does the opposite, stepping fully inside the living room, letting the window fall closed behind him with a thud.

It’s not Thor’s fault that Loki got too close, that Circe’s curse was lifted, that Loki didn’t get to say goodbye to his little boy, but he _blames_ Thor for all of it anyway, and he is the last person Loki wishes to see.

“Please,” Thor says, setting Mjolnir down on the floor. “It took me awhile to figure out which building was yours. I--,” and words suddenly stick in his throat. A small smile lights his face and he says, “It is good to see you, Loki.”

“Well, I do not want to see you,” Loki says, coming into the living room to bar Thor further access to his apartment. “Leave me in peace.”

“I must speak with you,” Thor says, walking towards him.

“Do _not_ come any closer or I will destroy you, I swear it,” Loki hisses. 

He has no want to hash through what happened with Thor. A wall has been constructed inside him and Loki wishes to seal all his feelings behind it so they might never wound him again, so that he might forever forget the love of a little boy who changed him so.

_“No,”_ Thor growls, and he steps within an easy arm's reach of him. “No, you will hear me, Loki.” Thor looks away for a moment, letting his burst of anger go in a shaky exhale. “I did not come here to argue with you, brother,” he says softly. 

“Then you should not have come,” Loki says. “Get this through your thick skull-- I do not want to talk to _you.”_

“But I _must_ speak with you! _I am desperate!”_ Thor shouts. Raking a hand through his hair, he looks away again and sighs, clearly not intending to reveal that bit of information. 

“Desperate,” Loki repeats with a raise of his eyebrows. 

“Aye,” Thor admits with a nod. 

What does Thor know of desperation? What could the Mighty Thor be in great need of? What torment shadows his heart? Loki doubts his brother knows the true meaning of the word.

His silence is interpreted as tacit permission to speak and so Thor does.

“You were by my side everyday for months,” Thor says. “I wake now and my first thought is you, Loki. When my mind wanders, I catch myself thinking about when I can return home to you as I did during the boring moments at school. And then I remember-- you will not be there.”

“And this has roused desperation in you?” Loki asks.

“I miss you, brother,” Thor says, ducking his head a little. "Your absence pains me.”

“Save your maudlin words for one who cares to hear them,” Loki snaps. 

“You deny that what transpired between us matters to you?” Thor asks. “There is nothing in all those weeks we shared together that you yearn for?”

“I miss my little one,” Loki admits because to deny that, even to Thor, seems grievously wrong somehow. “But he has forever departed this world.” 

“I am right _here,_ Loki,” Thor says.

“You are _not_ him,” Loki says pointedly. “That sweet little boy is gone-- _forever.”_

“No, Loki, that child lives within me and I would tell you plainly that your brother loves you no less for being now a man,” Thor says. “I may not be as I was, but I do remember all that you did for me-- how you loved me, Loki.”

Loki opens his mouth to protest, but Thor is suddenly in his space, gripping him by the arms and growls, “You can _not_ deny it, I was there!”

An involuntary hiss escapes between his teeth as Thor’s fingers dig into his flesh. Thor lets his hands fall to his sides and they shake with the intensity of his feeling. “Are you saying--,” Thor says, his voice wavering. “Do you mean that you cannot love me now? Now that I am grown?”

By the Norns, he sounds _wrecked,_ heartbroken for having to ask such a question. While Loki is processing this, Thor lowers himself, getting down on one knee and then the other, so that he is staring up at Loki in supplication with a look of open adoration on his face.

“Please, brother, do not cast me off. I am set adrift without you now,” Thor confesses. “Everything is-- a jumble."

Pressing his fingers to his temple, Thor winces as if his memories are jagged and sharp when his mind rolls over them.

"At times," Thor whispers, "I _forget_ where I am and when I don’t see you-- I take fright that I am lost. And I _am_ lost without you, brother. At once, you are my anchor. These feelings extend to my very core and I cannot shake them. I need you, Loki.”

Denial runs through every fiber of his being and Loki is shaking his head before Thor finishes speaking.

“You cannot bear to hear my words," Thor continues, "and that is _my_ fault, but I must say them to you-- I love you, my brother, with my whole heart."

Loki closes his eyes, for a moment disoriented. Thor, a would be king, his forever rival, cannot possibly _mean_ this. Yes, Thor has professed his love before, but never this way, never on his knees with a question on his lips. 

Thor decrees. What he thinks _must_ be so. He does not plead like a common peon before the crown. He commands his will be done-- _You will adore me because I wish it to be so._

Loki does not know what game Thor is playing nor what he could possibly hope to gain by convincing Loki that he is his five year old self, only grown up. The sorceress’s provocations resonate in his mind-- _When Thor is grown again, he will not love you!--_ and Loki dare not hope to think them untrue.

This is unfamiliar ground they tread upon now and having lost his bearing, Loki clings to what he knows.

“You need me to help you at present, but once you are adjusted, what then?” Loki asks. “You will use me until your purpose is through and then you will cast _me_ off like _refuse."_

“No, never! You think I have ever had anything other than love in my heart for you?” Thor says. “That I will ever stop wanting you in my life? Loki, _please,_ I cannot go back to the way it was before when you did not love me so plainly--.”

“I feel _nothing_ for you, you arrogant halfwit,” Loki sneers. “It’s not possible for me to love _you.”_

Thor blinks in shock, before hurt passes across his features, and just like a little boy, his face crumples with upset. 

A peal of thunder rumbles across the sky directly overhead, loud enough to rattle the window panes. Turning away, Thor shields his face with a hand, unable to hold his emotions in check. 

This open display of vulnerability is so unexpected of his gallant, strong hearted brother, that it stalls Loki’s ire in its tracks. Never has he seen Thor breakdown so freely.

Tears roll down Thor's face, though he tries to hide himself from Loki. Thor, golden and brave, laid bare his vulnerable side in trust and hope, and Loki hurt him as he said he would--

And so he has hurt the little boy he loved, too.

_“No,”_ Loki gasps. “It cannot be.”

Child Thor _is_ Thor. It was _Loki_ who separated the two in his mind, but they never were different people. The little boy who charmed him and loved him was always his brother and the man who kneels before him now is the child he cared for. 

Once blind, Loki is gifted with sight, finally seeing Thor as he truly is. The child and his brother are one and the same, if now a few hundred additional years occupy his mind. Grief for the loss of his child had crushed him, but hope perseveres, sprouting up amid the wreckage of his sorrow like a persevering weed.

Something splinters inside of Loki, letting loose the swell of emotion he’d hoped to keep walled up. 

And despite himself, he’s reaching for his brother, the man and the child within, his fingers curling into muscled shoulder. Strong arms envelop Loki’s waist, crushing him in an impossible grasp, and Thor weeps even harder, clinging to Loki as if he’s afraid he’ll vanish, which is a distinct possibility.

"Oh, Thor," Loki says, "Obstinate fool, I warned you not to get close to me." Tightness closes his throat and he swallows around it. “I’m sorry,” Loki whispers, pressing his lips against golden hair, "I did not understand. Dearheart, please do not cry."

Loki leans back and cups Thor’s face between his hands, thumbing the tears away, staring into Thor’s red rimmed blue eyes. 

A glimpse of the little boy Loki loved shines through Thor’s adult eyes. 

_Oh, my little one,_ Loki thinks. _Thor, it was you the whole time._

It is not often that Loki is overcome by surprise, for he has thus known a great, life altering upset, but now, as this revelation comes over him, he finds himself breathless with shock.

Thor _needs_ to be loved by him, he always has, but only now does Loki really understand that the affection he seeks is not driven by a need to control him, but that his want for his love is simple and uncomplicated and honest, as love in its truest sense should be.

“You understand now,” Thor whispers, “what I feel for you, what I have _always_ felt for you.”

Is _this_ what Thor has felt for him all this time? Is this why the fool could never give him up? Loki would never let his little child go for a second-- they were only parted by forces beyond his control.

“Perhaps I can be persuaded,” Loki says, “to think of you as I did him.” It will take time and effort on his part to truly accept Thor, to move past their long history, but Loki will endeavor to embrace him.

A smile lights Thor’s face and he nods, chuckling a breath as he wipes at his tears with the heel of his hands.

"I do not mean to cry," Thor says. "I have been more emotional since returning to this form." He gives another slight laugh and says, “The weather over Stark tower has been most erratic these past weeks.”

An ember of guilt burns in Loki’s gut. “How do you fare?” Loki asks. “After... after everything?”

Distraught after losing his little boy, Loki is ashamed to realize he hadn’t even considered that Thor might be having problems adjusting back to his adult self. 

“Mostly well,” Thor says with a small smile. “Sometimes, I wake in the middle of the night for no reason, panicked, and I’m up out of bed before I realize that you are not there, and I am a grown man with no need to be frightened of dreams.”

“Nightmares plagued you every single night for four months, Thor,” Loki says. “It will take some time for your mind to adjust.”

Thor nods, but he looks away, ashamed by this childish fear. Sharp eyes sweep over the lines of Thor’s face and where Loki once saw age, he now sees exhaustion. Thor is not sleeping well.

"Let me... take a look," Loki says. "Where the binding used to be,” he clarifies. “Please."

"Alright," Thor agrees.

Loki gestures to the couch and Thor strides over to it, sitting down at the cushion edge, and rubs his palms along his jean clad thighs. Thor has never been a closed book, but it’s remarkable how well Loki recognizes his emotions now. His brother is nervous, perhaps even afraid.

Settling next to him, Loki sweeps aside Thor’s blond tresses, and places his hand along the back of Thor's neck, feeling tension rise in the muscles there.

"I won't hurt you," Loki says.

"I know," Thor replies. "Go ahead."

Loki closes his eyes, and pushes forth, letting his seidr entwine with Thor's biorhythms. 

Nothing sharp or biting meets his touch for Thor’s natural energy is warm and gentle like morning light creeping across the floor. The dark threads of magic are gone. Nevertheless, there is scarring left behind, great uneven seams of trauma score his spirit, like wounds that required stitching and were never tended to. 

If the binding had come undone in a methodical way, there may have been no damage left behind. But the threads of the sorceress’s power were cut abruptly, leaving a tear for Thor alone to mend.

Thor will carry this scar on his soul for the rest of his life. Perhaps with time Loki can help heal the damage, lessening the marks of trauma Thor bears. It makes Loki's heart shiver, to think that his brother has been so compromised. And he wonders if this incident has shortened his long life. 

They were lucky, he realizes, so very lucky and Loki’s fingers tighten against his neck at the thought. 

“Does she linger?” Thor asks, his voice a low rumble. There’s worry there, real fear behind those words.

“No,” Loki replies quietly, his eyes fluttering open as his sorcery retreats. “Tell me,” Loki says, his fingers playing in the hair against Thor’s nape. “Tell me what it’s been like for you.”

Shooting a sideways glance at him, Thor tries to smile, but in that moment he looks like a lost little boy. “It’s been-- strange,” Thor says, leaning back against Loki’s arm. “Like waking in a dream.”

And then, Thor turns into him, curling against his side and resting his forehead against Loki’s shoulder, his breath warm against Loki’s neck. Going still, Loki falters, but then, he cannot stop his arm from coming around Thor’s broad form, keeping him close to his side.

“I remember being a child,” Thor says quietly, “but-- in moments set adrift from each other. It does not all make sense to me. I remember wondering at everything, going to school, playing on the beach. And I remember you. I was never afraid if you were there.”

Thor sighs, his soft breath tickling Loki’s throat. “And I remember _her_ and the things she whispered to me in the darkness.” 

A fierce compulsion to keep Thor safe from harm swells up in Loki. “She can’t hurt you now,” Loki says, clutching his brother a little closer.

“Aye,” Thor agrees. “Yet, that does not change the verity that my mind has been meddled with. Things are not quite the same. Memories come to me unbidden... Sometimes I am unsure if I am dreaming or if I am awake.”

Loki frowns, helpless anger at the sorceress mounting in him, and he fixes the ivory box up on the shelf with a nasty glare as if it were possible to invoke more punishment on her. 

_She’s gone,_ Loki reminds himself. _She’s paying her price._

“But if I am with you,” Thor continues, “I know I am awake.”

“It will get better with time,” Loki replies. “You’ll see.” Thor nods in agreement, his blond hair teasing his cheek.

Thor is heavy against him, but a comforting weight, a burden Loki will accept. Loki feels the tickle of a smile against his skin at his collar bone as Thor smirks.

“I keep... knocking things over and banging my head,” Thor admits. “At times, I forget how tall I am again.”

A laugh bubbles up inside Loki-- the notion of Thor as clumsy and uncoordinated as ever eliciting a roar of playful cackling from him. He remembers well Thor’s awkward, lumbering phase when he hadn’t quite grown into his frame yet.

“It is _not _funny,” Thor says trying to keep his voice stern, but Loki’s laughter is infectious and soon Thor is chuckling along with him. “Sometimes it _hurts,”_ he whines, which sends his brother into another fit of hysterics. __

__They sit side by side, laughing together, Thor's head resting on Loki's shoulder, and for once they just let things lie, no plots, no schemes, no power plays or ulterior motives._ _

__Its nice, but also unfamiliar and will take some getting used to, yet Loki finds he _wants_ to grow accustomed it. After his fall, Loki never thought it was possible to get _here,_ in a place of familial affection with _Thor._ Maybe it’s only a fleeting moment, but Loki wants to find out if such a peace can exist between them in the long term. _ _

__"You called my friends!" Thor says suddenly. "Stark had an earth sorcerer waiting for me-- a fine man called Strange-- on your request, brother. They were all most curious to find out what happened, especially since they were expecting a child to arrive at their door."_ _

__"I'll bet they were," Loki mutters. They probably all had a good laugh at his expense and he's grateful that none of Thor's comrades witnessed his part in this private thing between them. It was bad enough that he had contacted Stark at all._ _

__“I did not tell them everything," Thor says. "Some things are not meant to be shared beyond two people." Thor is quiet a moment before he says, “You would have done anything to help me.”_ _

__"Yes," Loki replies. It’s not as difficult to admit this to Thor as he believed it would be. All his life, Loki has cloaked his deeds in words to mask his true intentions. Only those who bothered to look past his silvertongue would see that the truth was spoken through his actions._ _

__Admitting his feelings plainly is still uncomfortable._ _

__Shifting in Loki’s hold, Thor cranes his neck to look up at Loki and says, “I like this very much.” And he’s grinning now, an impudent smirk that says, _I have caught you, brother. I know you really love me, even if you cannot say it.__ _

__“You are not too big for me to push off this couch,” Loki says._ _

__“Is this how you treat all your guests?” Thor asks._ _

__“I don’t usually have guests. You are one of the privileged few who have entered my inner sanctum,” Loki says. “And you’ve already broken the window and made yourself quite at home. I’m going to have to move now, aren’t I?”_ _

__Thor laughs softly. “I will not expose you,” he replies. “If you’ll let me visit you on occasion.”_ _

__He sits up suddenly, extricating himself from Loki’s grasp and turns slightly to face him. "May I come to visit you tomorrow?" Thor asks, his eyes sparkle with hope, but his brow creases slightly with worry._ _

__Loki stares at him a moment, studying the angular planes of his face. Little Thor is all grown up, but Loki recognizes his little one now, and his heart still flutters to think that the boy he'd come to love as his own was always this man._ _

__How intimately he knows his brother now and is well aware of what he really needs, even if he does not know it yet himself._ _

__His silence has made Thor uncertain, and he amends his question, "Or perhaps the day after? I don't have to come here, I could meet you--."_ _

__"No, Thor, I don't think that would be a good idea," Loki says._ _

__"Of course," Thor says quickly, nodding his head in agreement, but failing to hide his disappointment. "You are right,” he says, standing quickly. “I barged in here on you-- I should-- I should give you space to--."_ _

__Loki seizes his hand and holds it between his two. "That is, I do not think you should visit-- I think you should stay with me for a little while," Loki interrupts, "Until we have both adjusted."_ _

__Thor's eyes widen with surprise, and he searches Loki’s countenance for a hint of deceit. Finding nothing but truth written in the lines of his face, his lips curve into a delighted grin._ _

__"You mean this?" Thor asks._ _

__"I may live to regret it,” Loki says, “but, yes, I do."_ _

__And then as if Loki weights naught but a stone, Thor hauls Loki up, hugging him to his chest in a fierce embrace. “Thank you, brother,” he whispers._ _

__When Thor lets him go, his smile is broad and he looks as thrilled as he was the first time he’d played in the snow and seems to have the same surge of excited energy he displayed then._ _

__“We should _do_ something together, brother,” Thor says, rocking on his feet. “We have time now.”_ _

__“What, you expect me to find you crayons?” Loki asks, remembering little Thor’s favorite activity._ _

__“I was excellent with coloring!” Thor says, his eyes alight. “But no, I do not expect you should have crayons here. I do, however, expect to be fed.”_ _

__Loki crosses his arms and says, “Do you? And what does the Mighty Thor desire?”_ _

__“Pancakes!” Thor says instantly. “Pancakes-- Let’s make pancakes!”_ _

__And Loki can’t help but laugh at his honest excitement. It’s almost too much, Loki thinks as he steers Thor into his kitchen with a gentle prod at his back. The child within him bleeds through and Loki sees clearly that his little boy is not lost._ _

__Thor is happy. No grand promises were given, and yet Thor is content, with this one simple allowance to stay at Loki’s side, because Thor loves him._ _

__Thor’s merriment is compelling. Loki feels it effervescing around him like a spray of ocean, and he thinks that maybe he can be happy, too. As if reading his thoughts, Thor slips his hand around Loki's and squeezes hard, and Loki finds himself returning the strong grasp._ _

__Tomorrow, Loki will take Thor back to the cottage, and together they will sort it out. It will be difficult as Loki will be faced with memories of his darling five year old, but Thor will be with him to lessen any sorrow that might encroach upon him._ _

__The idea is still new to him, still fresh and unwieldy, and it is almost too astonishing to be believed, that his little one is here with him still, that Loki’s dearest heart turned out to be Thor all along._ _

__

__**FIN**_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say that I have so enjoyed reading your comments and interacting with all of you. Thank you for being supportive and sticking with it through to the end. I am shocked and amazed by the wonderful support this story has received and it truly encouraged me to continue writing and imagine a world with little!Thor. 
> 
> Thank you all very much!
> 
> I also wanted to mention that I have done some sketches {[I](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/30923657487/kid-thor-and-loki-ive-been-talking-about-my) [II](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/35805032456/loki-does-not-know-how-he-got-here-how-his-pure) [III](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/37272465236/thor-obstinately-rolls-over-putting-his-back-to) [IV](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/39694213129/heres-that-sketch-as-promised-thank-you-for) [V](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/40800818031/loki-follows-the-teacher-to-the-office-and-sees) [VI](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/post/41594680789/sneak-peek-excerpt-from-godchild-chapter-five)} to go along with this fic... and I may do some more if I have residual feels as I let this story go, so please check out my tumblr, specifically the [fic: Godchild](http://griseldajane.tumblr.com/tagged/fic%3A-Godchild) tag if you want to catch art (and all posts) related to this story.
> 
> And while you are a captive audience, I wanted to let you know that I have a few more Thor/Loki stories in the works (that are not gen, but not explicit either). If you think you might be interested in that, please check in on me from time to time! (I'll probably hem and haw over what story to choose next over on tumblr.)
> 
> Don't be a stranger, I love comments and questions and emails. And I would love to follow you on tumblr and twitter, so feel free to drop me a line there. Thanks everybody! 
> 
> Well, everyone, that's it, that's all she wrote. *hides under desk*


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